How Unfair Is This Encounter?

[GravityEmblem]

5 High Elf Knights, each on a Pegasus. They all have a +1 Dex bonus and the Fire Bolt Cantrip from their Race. The leader also has some Warlock abilities. (Eldritch Blast at will, Feather Fall and Shield 1/day each). They have Binoculars enchanted to grant Darkvision to 400 ft (Night vision goggles, basically). They're 350 feet in the air, wearing dark armor and riding dark pegasi, on a dark night, which I counted as 20 DC Perception to see from the ground. They're shooting at the party from above, gaining disadvantage from being outside Crossbow effective range, but disadvantage because the party can't see them. (Highest Passive Perception is 19, and nobody's rolled high enough yet). Last session, they took away about half the health of two characters. Another character, an Aaracockra Druid, flew up to them and surrendered, so he's bound with Moon Cuffs (handcuffs that prevent transformation, like Moonbeam). The Rogue is also up there, using the Cloak of the Bat's Polymorph power. The two injured characters are hiding behind a tree, and the uninjured one put out the campfire, so they can't see them anymore. (They can't use the binoculars to aim). That's when the session ended. My current plan for the battle is for them to fly down and all cast Fire Bolt on the tree (except for one, who'll guard their prisoner), providing some illumination.

Some other things to note:


The party are all Level 5
The grounded party members are a Shifter Fighter, a Halfling Monk, and a Half-Orc Barbarian
The reason this encounter exists is because the party kidnapped the King of the Elven Lands at a diplomatic meeting.
The Knights don't want to kill them; they want to capture them and interrogate them to find where the king is hidden
(It's worth noting that the king is dead, but the Elves don't know that)
The Pegasi will not attack the party. They're just mounts.


So, is this encounter fair? After my last boss was defeated far too easily, I wanted to give the party an engaging tactical challenge. None of them have really complained about the difficulty, but I wanted to consult the wonderful world of online forums to see if I should tone down the difficulty.

[Xervous]

Unfair? It’s not pulling punches. Appropriate for kidnapping a king? Sure.

Main issue I see is the party has split itself. Would have been far more preferable for them to all agree to resist or surrender.

Are the PCs responsible for the kings death?

[Trask]

If your players kidnap a king, I feel you don't have to make it "fair" (within reason). If the five greatest knights of Elfland would come to arrest the kidnappers of their sworn charge, then that's what happens.

I do think that these knights seems strong, but reasonably so. The party will probably lose if they don't run or get lucky, and that's ok.

[GravityEmblem]

Unfair? It’s not pulling punches. Appropriate for kidnapping a king? Sure.

Main issue I see is the party has split itself. Would have been far more preferable for them to all agree to resist or surrender.

Are the PCs responsible for the kings death?

They didn't kill the king, but they did return him to their employer, who killed the king to cover up her involvement and got very annoyed with the party.

[KorvinStarmast]

If your players kidnap a king, I feel you don't have to make it "fair" (within reason). If the five greatest knights of Elfland would come to arrest the kidnappers of their sworn charge, then that's what happens.

I do think that these knights seems strong, but reasonably so. The party will probably lose if they don't run or get lucky, and that's ok. Spot on, and how I'd play it. 2x Deadly is the minimum I'd use as a guide for the royal elf knights to track down and either kill or capture those who kidnapped the elf king. Minimum. Might be 3x.
They didn't kill the king, but they did return him to their employer, who killed the king to cover up her involvement and got very annoyed with the party. That makes them accomplices to the murder. (Strictly speaking. You are the DM, your call in a general sense).

[Xervous]

They didn't kill the king, but they did return him to their employer, who killed the king to cover up her involvement and got very annoyed with the party.

And that’s how heads end up on pikes. Do you see the party surviving in the case of a surrender? Is it abundantly clear to them the likely result of surrender?

[GravityEmblem]

And that’s how heads end up on pikes. Do you see the party surviving in the case of a surrender? Is it abundantly clear to them the likely result of surrender?

As I said earlier, the Elves don't know their king is dead; they think the party has hidden him somewhere, and they intend to find out where. They would eventually be executed publicly at the capital, but not before they're sure the party's told them everything.

The elves aren't likely to reveal themselves and demand a surrender until their position is compromised or they've taken out enough enemies to feel comfortable. However, the basics of the situation will probably be explained to the captured Aaracockra, which the players will hear and probably take into consideration.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Depends what you mean by fair.
Sounds like the elves have an overwhelming tactical advantage. If there's no other overhead cover within about 100', I'd say the PCs are screwed.

[MrStabby]

It is OK for bad things to happen to PCs as a result of their actions.

If you kidnap the king, dont take sufficient precautions to hide your involvement and don't make a quick getaway/return to the country of your crime... then yeah, expect to be hunted down with overwhelming force.

"Unfair" is if they were never given the option to not kiddnap the King. Or if they were lead to believe it wasn't the king. Or if there were a contrived set of circumstances involving being sold non-functional scrolls of non-detection, being betrayed by a close ally, lured out of hiding just as the cavalry are coming or whatever. That might be unfair.

Kidnaping a king might no be suicidal, but it can be done in a suicidal way. How you deal with this may depend on the style of your game though.




At a more tactical level, its fine to be even harder than this. The objective is not to defeat the enemy but to survive them. If the party can make it to some caves or more cover just long enough to force the enemy out of the sky (if their mounts get tired and they need to land then visability will be a lot more limited). Or the party might use invisibility or some other trick to try and slip away. I mean it's dark - even with darkvision it is still disadvantage on perception checks.

[Lupine]

As a Player, this would be rather infuriating to me. Overwhelming tactical advantage is one thing, but the "you can't see them" + overwhelming tactics would make me leave the table.
Do those tactics make sense? sure. but sometimes, as a DM, we must sacrifice real tactics for the fun of the players.

in any case, your "you can't see them 'cuz DC20" really sucks for the 19 passive perception character: they're level five, meaning +3 prof bonus. the only way they could get a 19 passive perception is if the character put expertise in passive perception. That shows that the player wants to be the character who notices things, and your encounter prevents him from doing exactly that.
if you want to have an encounter where the location of the enemies are difficult to determine, that's one thing, but the characters who build to have high passive perceptions should still get to feel special.

but good news! you said that no one has seen them yet. That means you have room to play around. So, what if, instead of them all being edgy dark, they had a spell on them, like Pass without Trace or Major Image, which was why the party couldn't see them. Well, now you can have the spell fade, revealing the knights.

Unless you're trying to lead up to a prison-break adventure, this would give the party time to "get their act together," and prepare to be on the run.

In any case, it's probably too late now. What to do about it, then?
Well, the first question from the knights is "where is he?"

eventually, it will come out that he's dead.

The knights are presumably reasonably intelligent. During kidnappings, the goal is normally ransom, so if the king is dead, it was probably not the player's intentions (after all, if their goal was to kill him, why go to the effort of kidnapping him?) Next question: "What went wrong? Why did you kill him, instead of attempt a ransom?"

eventually, it will come out that their employer killed him

So, the knights might recognize that these people were just the pawns, and that --similar to organized crime-- working the pawns for the next level up, and working the next level for the next next level, and so on, until you have the master mind. So, they take a "plea-bargain" approach, and offer a lighter sentence if they give up everything they know (locations, people, secret knocks, etc)

Ultimately, where you go next is up to you, but this sort of encounter just... doesn't seem fun.

[Valmark]

As a Player, this would be rather infuriating to me. Overwhelming tactical advantage is one thing, but the "you can't see them" + overwhelming tactics would make me leave the table.
Do those tactics make sense? sure. but sometimes, as a DM, we must sacrifice real tactics for the fun of the players.

in any case, your "you can't see them 'cuz DC20" really sucks for the 19 passive perception character: they're level five, meaning +3 prof bonus. the only way they could get a 19 passive perception is if the character put expertise in passive perception. That shows that the player wants to be the character who notices things, and your encounter prevents him from doing exactly that.
if you want to have an encounter where the location of the enemies are difficult to determine, that's one thing, but the characters who build to have high passive perceptions should still get to feel special.

but good news! you said that no one has seen them yet. That means you have room to play around. So, what if, instead of them all being edgy dark, they had a spell on them, like Pass without Trace or Major Image, which was why the party couldn't see them. Well, now you can have the spell fade, revealing the knights.

Unless you're trying to lead up to a prison-break adventure, this would give the party time to "get their act together," and prepare to be on the run.

In any case, it's probably too late now. What to do about it, then?
Well, the first question from the knights is "where is he?"

eventually, it will come out that he's dead.

The knights are presumably reasonably intelligent. During kidnappings, the goal is normally ransom, so if the king is dead, it was probably not the player's intentions (after all, if their goal was to kill him, why go to the effort of kidnapping him?) Next question: "What went wrong? Why did you kill him, instead of attempt a ransom?"

eventually, it will come out that their employer killed him

So, the knights might recognize that these people were just the pawns, and that --similar to organized crime-- working the pawns for the next level up, and working the next level for the next next level, and so on, until you have the master mind. So, they take a "plea-bargain" approach, and offer a lighter sentence if they give up everything they know (locations, people, secret knocks, etc)

Ultimately, where you go next is up to you, but this sort of encounter just... doesn't seem fun.

Well tecnically they are already being nice- normally the party wouldn't be able to see anything in darkness. Unless they have 350 feet of darkvision.

Besides that... One of them already surrendered. Unless that's a secret plan, I'd just go ahead with the plan.

Look, they kidnapped a king. At level 5.
They kinda earned it.
It is obviously unwinnable by the group imo, but I don't know if it's a bad thing. They did something big like that it's assumed you'll be hunted down by the king's retainers.

[Mellack]

My only complaint would be that you seem to have tossed in a lot of custom magic items. Is that common in your game world?

[ProsecutorGodot]

My only complaint would be that you seem to have tossed in a lot of custom magic items. Is that common in your game world?

It's only two relatively low impact items. They have worse "huge range nightvision" than they could have had simply giving one of the elves a level of Twilight Cleric in that they have to actively use the binoculars instead of being able to acquire targets and fire in the same round.

The handcuffs being seemingly designed specifically to counteract the Druid is a little suspect, but all they really do is avoid the trouble of beating him into unconsciousness. I assume the player would have been more bothered by that then the handcuffs.

My gut tells me there's no win condition for this fight, which is fine considering the circumstance. Perhaps if they're exceptionally lucky and persuasive they can shift the blame to their employer enough to not be killed.

It's a long shot but running seems pretty impossible for anyone but the Rogue, who has every ability to simply fly away as a bat and start a new party.

[Lupine]

Well tecnically they are already being nice- normally the party wouldn't be able to see anything in darkness. Unless they have 350 feet of darkvision.

Besides that... One of them already surrendered. Unless that's a secret plan, I'd just go ahead with the plan.

Look, they kidnapped a king. At level 5.
They kinda earned it.
It is obviously unwinnable by the group imo, but I don't know if it's a bad thing. They did something big like that it's assumed you'll be hunted down by the king's retainers.

Very true. The darkvision thing is something most players forget about.
however, OP mentioned that this was something they did for an employer. So the question becomes, is it fair for the OP to give this to the party as a quest, and then give them a murderous encounter because of it?

My personal opinion is that encounter is fair game for what they did, but only if they chose to do it spontaneously. If the DM gives you a quest, the expectation is that you don't waste his or her time spent on said quest, and go along (provided it doesn't bust your character's personality). I don't think it's fair to give the party a quest, have the quest giver kill the king, and then launch a lethal encounter on them. The only choice the players had there was whether to do the thing, or say "to hell with what you planned, we're going fishing."

Thus, an unbeatable fight due to a single choice to do something, in which the other option was obviously dodging the DM's hook isn't really fair, in my eyes.

[Galithar]

I think the biggest factor in determining if it's unfair is, before this encounter did those magic items exist? Or were they made specifically to perfectly screw over your party?

If mooncuffs are a known thing in the world due to large numbers of shape-shifting criminals than it's reasonable to expect these knights to use them. If you specifically made them to prevent the Druid an easy wildshape escape then it seems like a DM vs. player mindset because you're upset they beat your boss easily and want revenge.

If the military already had these night vision binoculars and it was established in the world then its fine. If you created them specifically to create an encounter with enemies that could easily stay out of the range of a majority of the party and all have vision to track and target them, then same as before it sounds like you're trying to force a no win scenario on them so that you can "win" D&D.


I'll also say that if this is a rather sandboxy game where the players decided to kidnap a king then a no win scenario is okay. If it's more guided, or you put them on the path to where they ended up, making it seem like they were SUPPOSED to kidnap the king, then you railroaded them into failure.

Tl;dr there is a set of circumstances where this encounter is appropriate, but it seems very targeted to make sure your players lose.

[Vorpalchicken]

The knights aren't remaining hidden if they are attacking. The crossbow attacks should give away their positions until the next turn and make them target-able albeit with disadvantage in my opinion. Unless they are taking actions to hide in the darkness in which case they aren't attacking that turn.
Yes this is wonky 5e combat rules but if you want a fair fight this is how it should be run. If you want a no-win scenario then you need not run the combat at all.

[Kane0]

The knights aren't remaining hidden if they are attacking. The crossbow attacks should give away their positions until the next turn and make them target-able albeit with disadvantage in my opinion. Unless they are taking actions to hide in the darkness in which case they aren't attacking that turn.
Yes this is wonky 5e combat rules but if you want a fair fight this is how it should be run. If you want a no-win scenario then you need not run the combat at all.

This was my first thought, attacking reveals your location unless you hide again. The magic items and tactical advantage would probably make sense in-world but once the trap is sprung the players need some sort of chance to respond, even if the odds are decidedly against them.

[JellyPooga]

Yeah, I'm definitely in the "this sounds like adverserial GMing" camp on this one.

The encounter itself is decidedly unfair. The NPCs have the advantage of terrain, elevation, range and vision. The only way for the PCs to survive this encounter are;
A) Luck. Which is perhaps the worst way to rely on resolving an encounter.
B) NPC stupidity (aka GM leniency). This is something that always leaves a sour taste, IMO, because the players will know you "let them win".
C) Surrender/Capture. Which may be the intended result, which is fine.

The problem with this encounter is not that it's hard or even impossible for the PCs to win; the same result could be achieved by sending an army or any overwhelming force. The problem is that the PCs had know way of knowing that they were entirely outmatched and no way of acting accordingly; they're just there to lose.

If this was never supposed to be a winnable fight, then narrating an outcome might feel like "railroading", but in actual play I've found a little narrative to move the plot along sits better in the minds of players than unfair, unwinnable or entirely gonzo fights...because players expect to have a chance of success when the dice fall and you're not giving them that. This encounter is very much chugging along those railroad tracks. If the players can't win, just tell them so. Why drag out the process by pretending they can? What does it achieve except to satisfy your own power fantasy as GM (which is entirely misplaced, given you have all the power anyway)?

How much time has been wasted on an encounter that could have been resolved with a single question; "Do you want to surrender?" If "Yes", proceed to interrogation. If "No", tell them they lose the unwinnable fight and proceed to interrogation. This is bad encounter design; the purpose of an encounter is to quite literally roll the dice on a variable outcome. You don't have any variables here; the end result is going to be the same regardless of what the Player choose to do, i.e. they get captured.

If there was a reasonable option that the players could take to escape the encounter or assess their odds and make a tactical decision that lets them win through against the odds, sure, go for it...but you have stacked the deck so far against them that they're literally just standing in the dark waiting to die and they don't even know who or what's killing them (at least most of the characters don't). What choices to the players have? Run? Their foe has speed and aerial superiority on them. Fight? With what? They can't see their foe, let alone get range on them. Make a cunning plan? Have you given them this facility? Even something as bat-poop crazy as catapulting the Barbarian skyward by bending pine trees might be an option if they could see their foe, but you have taken that option away.

This isn't a tactical challenge.
This isn't a tough fight.
It's a waste of time.

If I were in your shoes, I might have sent these pegasus knights during the day. That one change makes all the difference.
- For one, you get a badass visual impact. The players can *see* that they're outmatched and respond accordingly. How disappointing and frustrating are fight scenes in movies when you can't see what's happening? Yes, it can be used to great effect, but usually only when it's all over quickly to emphasise the impact. The other time it can be used well is for horror, but this doesn't sound like that kind of scenario.
- Secondly, it gives the players the option of fighting or not; they might come up with a crazy plan you didn't see coming and pull it off; that's a big win for everyone at the table!
- Third, it doesn't involve inventing a magic item that doesn't fit the standard model. Darkvision usually comes in two flavours; 60ft and 120ft. Even when magic is involved. You appear to have decided otherwise and that's a big red flag.

How I would proceed from here is at the start of the next session, I would put a quick halt on the action and open with a bold statement from the leader of the Knights. Have some kind of "flare" effect take place, allowing the players to see exactly what they're up against for a brief moment and offer an ultimatum. "We have your friend already and we have the high ground! Surrender and you'll live to see the dawn!" or somesuch. Offer a quick resolution as an alternative to resolving this drawn out frustrating fight that isn't actually very interesting and probably isn't much fun to be playing IMO.

If you genuinely want the players to have a chance of winning, you could reveal some piece of terrain or feature during the flare that they can take advantage of or at least even the odds a little; perhaps there's a cave a little way away through the trees that they could flee to and hide in. Just adding a little detail like that opens up a whole bunch of possibilities. For example; Do they abandon their ally or try to go rescue them? Are they now trapped in the cave? Did the Elves collapse the entrance? Are they waiting outside the cave in ambush, or are they going to come in to try and get them? What if the Elves send for reinforcement ground forces to get them? What's deeper in the cave?

[GravityEmblem]

Wow, there's a lot to unpack here! Thank you to everyone who replied!

The first thing I need to establish is that this is not supposed to be an impossible encounter. As mentioned in the first post, I was a bit miffed that the party defeated a big boss I had planned without much difficulty at all, so I decided to up the CR quite a bit. My goal was to make a tough, but fair, encounter. Something engaging, tactically interesting, that could go either way. I started this thread because I was afraid I'd screwed up and accidentally made something too hard.

I think I'm going to lean heavily into JellyPooga's suggestion. Basically, I'm going to have the Knights send one Knight down to convince the rest of the party to surrender (along with some metacontexual dialogue about how "You're just going to slaughter them, without even a chance to surrender?") From there, they can surrender, and become captured. They can fight, and most likely become captured. Or, they can flee into the nearby forest. Maybe even find a cave-with something interesting inside, like a Xorn or a Wrymling.

For everything else, I'm basically going to split into Roleplay (is this encounter justified from a story perspective?), Rules (Have I broken the rules or interpreted them in an unreasonable way?), and Encounter Building (aspects of the actual encounter). Most of this is intended to be explanation, rather than justification. I'm not saying "Here's why this encounter isn't unfair at all!" I'm saying, "I just feel like explaining my thought process for this ridiculously unfair encounter."

Roleplay

So, was the kidnapping the party's fault? Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely yes. You may say, "Look, Gravity, they were hired by somebody. Refusing would be resisting the DM's plot. You're railroading them into committing a terrible crime." Yes, that's a reasonable response from what y'all know. But you don't know that their mission wasn't to kidnap the king, it was to deliver a message to a Dwarf diplomat who was meeting with the king. The message contained information that would incite a war between the Dwarves and Elves, and their boss, the Advisor to the king of the Human nation, wanted the crimes the Elves had committed to be exposed without facing accusations of being warmongers, so she hired the party to work "off the grid." The Druid, after the message was delivered, decided that kidnapping the King would provide enough leverage to make the Dwarves win the war before it began. The Dwarf diplomat refused, saying it was dishonorable and illegal. He did it anyway. The Fighter helped him, and the Monk tried to stop him, but accidentally shot the king and was teleported out of the castle by the Advisor, just the same. She got very mad at the party, and considered killing the king to be the only way to keep her involvement secret.

That basically means that the Druid, Fighter, and (because of the misunderstanding) Monk are higher priority targets than the Barbarian, Rogue, and the Wizard they're escorting.

As for the class levels and magic items, this is a very high-magic setting. You know, the kind where every other town has a magic item shop. They weren't exactly warned that the Elf military had magic items, but they're Elves. They have magics, it would make sense for their Elite Strike Force to have some magic stuff. The Moon Cuffs were specifically meant to combat the Druid...because he had revealed himself as one when he Wild Shaped in the kidnapping. And, since the Elves worship the Archfey, I thought it made sense for the Captain to have a level or two in FeyLock.

Rules

I really wasn't trying to screw over the high Perception character (who actually had the Observant Feat, not Proficiency). The handbooks all list DCs in increments of 5, and I felt like reducing it by 1 so one guy could see them felt a bit...pander-y to me. Honestly, it kinda ended up as a moot point, since 19PassPercept guy was the Druid who was asleep during the first round and whose first action was to fly up and surrender.

As for the location...maybe it's just me, but I distinguished between having a general idea of where someone is, and seeing them. In this scenario, the grounded party has an idea of what part of the sky the knights are, but not exactly where they are. You could target them with an AoE attack, but not an Attack Roll.

Encounter Building

This is probably a sign of poor DMing (or at least, not thinking ahead), but I more or less based each aspect of the fight on a "problem." That is, something that would mess up the general vibe of the encounter, or make it too easy. For example:

"PROBLEM:" If the Knights follow the party on foot, they might see them
"SOLUTION:" Give the knights Pegasi

"PROBLEM:" I don't want the party to feel completely safe while resting, and they already had a Random Encounter (and Elf and a Dwarf fighting over the last rolo. No one was harmed) today.
"SOLUTION:" They attack at night.

Note the prominent quotation marks.

Anyway, as mentioned before, this wasn't supposed to be an impossible encounter. I'm not adverse to impossible encounters. I didn't let the party fight when half the town guard came to arrest everyone in the tavern after a bar fight. (Actually, they may have been able to win that one. But you can't really kill half the town guard and not face consequences) No, this was just supposed to be a tough and interesting fight, I just screwed up.

Once again, thanks to everybody who sent in messages! I'll take into account what you said for the rest of this encounter, and for subsequent encounters! Plus, I'll be sure to tell you how things went when I run it. Seriously, thank you for helping me improve as a DM!

[Bobthewizard]

Nice write up, JellyPooga. I had written a similar response to the original post, but yours is much more eloquent. Well done.

[JellyPooga]

Encounter Building

This is probably a sign of poor DMing (or at least, not thinking ahead), but I more or less based each aspect of the fight on a "problem." That is, something that would mess up the general vibe of the encounter, or make it too easy. For example:

"PROBLEM:" If the Knights follow the party on foot, they might see them
"SOLUTION:" Give the knights Pegasi

"PROBLEM:" I don't want the party to feel completely safe while resting, and they already had a Random Encounter (and Elf and a Dwarf fighting over the last rolo. No one was harmed) today.
"SOLUTION:" They attack at night.

It's important, when building an encounter, to treat it like you're writing a story; you need to keep in mind 5 questions; Who, Where, Why, What and How.
- Who's involved?
- Where is is set?
- Why is it happening?
- What is/are the possible outcome/s?
- How will it play out?

The first three usually take care of themselves; the PC's themselves, the adventures' locations, CR/Monster tables and the plot are often the easiest things to throw at the wall to see if they stick and they frequently will if you slather it with enough jam. Who/Where/Why is easy and frequently have little importance in the design process itself (conversely, they have much higher importance in Adventure design, but that's a different matter).

The outcomes of an encounter are the second most important aspect; you need to know where the encounter is going; What do you hope to achieve with this encounter? Move the plot along? Deplete resources? Give the Players a choice? Resolve an issue? This is critical to know, because without a clear idea of what the result or results of the encounter is/are supposed to be or could be, you can't know how to proceed once the encounter is over. Ideally, you should almost always have multiple "endings" in mind, but it's not required and you always have to bear in mind that you can't predict everything; Players are infamous for throwing curve-balls, so always be prepared to improvise!

The primary and most critical aspect is the "How" of the encounter. This is of utmost importance, because if the encounter plays out one-dimensional or in a way that the Players have no agency, then it's not going to be fun, which is the name of the game at the end of the day. In your dark-pegasi scenario, you've got the elements of a good encounter (Who, Where, Why and even a What), but you've put them together in a way that hasn't considered how the Players are actually going to resolve it. It's a fish-in-a-barrel scenario and that's no fun for anyone involved; the conclusion is foregone. Once you've put all the other elements together, you need to look back and consider if any of them are lacking; for instance, when I looked at your encounter, I saw a gap where introducing a cave might open up the possibilities in both the Where and What; give the PC's a distinct terrain feature they can utilise and that increases the possible outcomes of the scenario, asking a whole slew of additional questions, depending on what the PCs decide to do. Alternatively, changing the time of day (another Where aspect) changes the dynamic of the encounter entirely from a 1D fish-in-a-barrel where NPCs hold all the cards, to putting the ball in the Players court; "how do we overcome the enemies advantages of flight and range?" is the question the encounter asks of them. The primary purpose of an Encounter should always be to ask a question and that question is always some variation of "How might the PC's resolve X?". If you can't come up with at least one answer to that question, you don't have an encounter.

[da newt]

In my opinion, based only on what I have read, this encounter is nearly unwinnable for the party. They have a very small chance of defeating the elves. However, they can survive the encounter by surrendering or they can flee (which may or may not be effective).

I think the 400' night vision binoculars are a little cheesy.

I don't think this is unfair due to their decisions/actions in the past, but it all depends on what you have planned after this encounter.

As a DM I would strongly advise you to ensure that there is a way for them to survive this in the long run - a realistic / rational way for them to admit guilt, but eventually earn their freedom or something.

If your goal is to ensure they are punished for their decisions/action and this includes execution or long term confinement then as the DM you have decided they deserve a TPK, so you designed a unwinnable scenario, and that tends to alienate your players, and is unfair.

[GravityEmblem]

The range on real-life night vision goggles is actually way more than 400 ft, so I felt justified in given the knights that. In hindsight, kind of a silly reason.

Really, I'm kind of annoyed at the party, because the diplomatic meeting was their realistic and rational way to earn their freedom. They had already committed a different crime, and were working for the Advisor in exchange for a pardon.

I wasn't going to just kill them without providing some opportunities to escape-and in fact, the party's current plan is to fake-out surrender. But I established the Elves of this setting as Blue-Orange Morality Magic Racists, whose legal and religious solution to every wrongdoing is to sacrifice the criminal to the Archfey. I feel like the party might cry foul if I undermine that to rescue them. No very loudly, of course.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I wasn't going to just kill them without providing some opportunities to escape-and in fact, the party's current plan is to fake-out surrender. But I established the Elves of this setting as Blue-Orange Morality Magic Racists, whose legal and religious solution to every wrongdoing is to sacrifice the criminal to the Archfey. I feel like the party might cry foul if I undermine that to rescue them. No very loudly, of course.

If this is true, they've already taken steps down the murderhobo path and consequences should follow.

Something to keep in mind for the future is that a readers perception will change drastically given context. I already sort of assumed that the players were playing it loose simply on account of kidnapping the king at level 5 but I've seen more drastic plot developments so I thought perhaps they'd had some incentive to do it.

With all the further context, I'm sure the players are going to feel a bit set up but they really didn't have to kidnap the king. Having the employer kill the king however seems to be an escalation that you yourself did that I can't put much reason behind.


Really, I'm kind of annoyed at the party, because the diplomatic meeting was their realistic and rational way to earn their freedom. They had already committed a different crime, and were working for the Advisor in exchange for a pardon.

Not going to lie though, this line kind of leads me to believe there's some tension on both sides.

[GravityEmblem]

Not going to lie though, this line kind of leads me to believe there's some tension on both sides.


Really? I guess it does come off that way, I suppose. But in practice, there's really very little tension. Everyone's been having lots of fun.

[ThatoneGuy84]

So I read the entier thread. The first post didnt quite give enough information.

I would say yes, the encounter difficulty was extremely high, well outpacing what they are capable of. That being said, its thier own fault so that part to me seems fine, but I wouldnt hesitate to kill the players for the actions taken in game if that was the response you thought the elves would have taken, you could have mobilized the army vs them and it would have been acceptable from the side of a kingdom to get a king back.

The only issue I would have is the entier encounter seems extremely DM meta gamed, themed to be extra difficult and even to give the enemy specific items just yo combate this group. You can disagree if you want, but it is.

Starting with Homebrewing Magic equiptment.

1 : Magical item to extend range of dark vision far past the normal (your other statement saying you could have made 1 a twilight cleric instead screams u WANTED to meta game this range vs the PCs)
You could have just as easily have given them the regular Goggle of the Night which would have extended the elves natural Darkvison to 120ft which would have been as effective and given your players a more fair shot.

The part about setting a passive perception DC isnt relevant. The attackers where unseen, unless your players have insane Darkvision of thier own, they wouldnt have been able to pinpoint a location, they would just suffer from the blinded condition firing back.

2. Shackles specifically ment to prevent a single PCS abilities.

3. Pegasus Mounts - Entirely unnecessary and probably not needed for this encounter unless you plan way to chop the melee players chances of fighting to Zero. Giving superior ground range in the dark would have given them plenty of rounds to move just to get into combat in the first place, no need to eliminate them from entering at all.

As a Player I would be pretty cheesed about this encounter, I would be less cheesed if
- The random encounter was actually random, not an ambush ment to hit them at night.
- Extra homebrew items weren't tossed in to specifically extending extra advantage to the elves.
- Range that I'm guessing most players in the group couldnt even counter attack from at all.

Again, I think it was possible to make this encounter fun and engaging, Not give the Enemys such a huge advantage over the players, and still likely end up with the result you wanted (capture/interrogate ect) but I think what you did was set up an encounter that would 100% go that route because you decided that was the route you wanted the game to go, which is fine it's your game you are the DM but to me it feels alittle railroady. You could have made this a fun cat and mouse multi-session adventure, had multiple waives of attackers come at them over time, wear them down, ect. But instead decided to shoot fish in a barrel and they know it. Might aswell kill them and start the next campaign, cause anything other then that is throwing them a bone at this point.

[GravityEmblem]

I...disagree?

At this point, I understand my encounter is broken and unfair. But I'm looking for ways to move forward, and I don't think "kill them, start a new campaign" is going to be much fun for anyone.

Besides, my players aren't cheesed at all. It's kind of weird.

[Gignere]

Don’t they have fog cloud, silent image or darkness? Once they have obscurement all they need to do is take the hide option and that would force the opponents to land.

If they don’t land just use silent image obscurement which can be moved every round and stealth away remember they will have disadvantage to their perception rolls.

I would create a silent image that mimics the surrounding environment but covering the characters and stealth away.

[GravityEmblem]

Don’t they have fog cloud, silent image or darkness? Once they have obscurement all they need to do is take the hide option and that would force the opponents to land.

If they don’t land just use silent image obscurement which can be moved every round and stealth away remember they will have disadvantage to their perception rolls.

I would create a silent image that mimics the surrounding environment but covering the characters and stealth away.

They have none of those spells. The only Spellcaster is the Druid, who surrendered and doesn't even have those spells prepared.

Anyway, they've only used the janky Darkvision Binoculars to observe one of the party members juggling hand axes by the fire, so I can easily say that it's only 120 ft. Which is still within Fire Bolt range.

If they run into the marshland, I'm planning on them encountering a Black Dragon who speaks with a Shrek impression. This is pretty big, since they were led to believe there were no Chromatic Dragons in this setting. I was thinking they could use his hatred of Elves to convince him to defend them.

[Gignere]

They have none of those spells. The only Spellcaster is the Druid, who surrendered and doesn't even have those spells prepared.

Anyway, they've only used the janky Darkvision Binoculars to observe one of the party members juggling hand axes by the fire, so I can easily say that it's only 120 ft. Which is still within Fire Bolt range.

If they run into the marshland, I'm planning on them encountering a Black Dragon who speaks with a Shrek impression. This is pretty big, since they were led to believe there were no Chromatic Dragons in this setting. I was thinking they could use his hatred of Elves to convince him to defend them.

Well if the only caster is the Druid your party had major weaknesses. I probably wouldn’t have stacked the decks so hard against them.

If they had the typical spell casters and the players know what to do with their spells you can throw some crazy encounters at the party and they will probably at least survive it. However I guess that’s water under the bridge maybe have them use the chase rules and just dash until exhausted to get the hell away.

[GravityEmblem]

Yeah, that's kind of the problem. I really didn't mean to stack the deck, but I ended up doing so anyway.

[Valmark]

The only thing I'm confused about is why the binoculars were an issue if the party was by a fire in the open.

[GravityEmblem]

The only thing I'm confused about is why the binoculars were an issue if the party was by a fire in the open.

People objected to the Knights having a magic item that violated traditional Darkvision rules and was apparently built to counter the party. From my perspective, making them all Twilight Clerics would have been even worse, since it's permanent Darkvision to 300 feet (which would allow them to actually hit people, instead of just having a general idea of where they are), and the Archfey doesn't have Twilight as one of his Domains.

[ThatoneGuy84]

I...disagree?

At this point, I understand my encounter is broken and unfair. But I'm looking for ways to move forward, and I don't think "kill them, start a new campaign" is going to be much fun for anyone.

Besides, my players aren't cheesed at all. It's kind of weird.

Move them up to 120 FT dsrkvison now that the fire has been put out. (Because remember if the party in some way kills these people that will also get the loot, so basic Goggles of night vision are fine) they could easily see them before because of the light source.

Dont keep them all mounted (your players are mainly melee, create a reason for them to get at ground level to give them a chance) offer surrender as an option once they "land thier mounts 120 ft away".

Gives the players - A the option to attempt to run or attempt to get out of the situation later
Or B - the oppertunity to close the distance over a could turns and fight thier way out if they want to, while being bombarded at range trying to reach the enemys.

Remember how dark vision works. If they PCs try to stealth thier way up to fight the Perception checks made with disadvantage for your enemies. But the same goes for if the enemys attempt to hide they players have disadvantage.

I would give the Druid an oppertunity to escape and join the fight IF they decide to fight it out, or give the rogue an oppertunity to attempt a way to free him to have him join the battle.

[ThatoneGuy84]

People objected to the Knights having a magic item that violated traditional Darkvision rules and was apparently built to counter the party. From my perspective, making them all Twilight Clerics would have been even worse, since it's permanent Darkvision to 300 feet (which would allow them to actually hit people, instead of just having a general idea of where they are), and the Archfey doesn't have Twilight as one of his Domains.

As for this part. I think the problem with this is NPCs arent classes PCs. But that's delving into an entire other conversation.

[Kane0]

At least one should stay with the captured party member(s) and the others land to offer a chance of surrender before lighting up the surrounding area with firebolts, which both destroys cover (bad for PCs) and illuminates the battlefield (good for PCs).

The knights dont fight to kill, they dont use ranged or magic attacks as those can’t opt to make a character unconscious at 0. They want information and prisoners, not corpses.

[GravityEmblem]

So.

How'd it go?

The first suggestion was by the Fighter, who wanted to use a tree to catapult something up at the elf knights. It was at this moment that I realized the encounter being impossible was only mostly my fault. He then proceeded to run into the woods, looking for a "flexible sapling." The Barbarian faked a knee injury while juggling hand axes. The Halfling realized he didn't have Darkvision.

The Druid had a more effective solution. He pickpocketed the keys to the moon cuffs and pretended to faint, going into free fall. Under the super-simplified falling mechanics, I decided he would fall at 180 ft/round, which was coincidentally how fast the pegasi could dive while dashing. I told him he would take lots of falling damage. (the maximum amount of 20d6, in fact). He said he should be able to start flying just before he hit the ground, taking none. I ended up saying that, for every 10 ft of movement he used to "slow down," he could reduce the fall damage by 1d6. He just barely avoided getting knocked out, since we were using those alternate falling rules where you fall unconscious if the damage exceeds your Con score. He transformed into a spider in order to hide. Since he was so small, I gave him advantage on the stealth check. He got a 20. The highest Perception roll was an 18. He escaped.

Meanwhile, the Fighter didn't find any "flexible saplings," but he did find a Black Dragon with a scottish accent and a hatred of Elves. He was able to convince the dragon to come out and kill the elf knights in exchange for 15 fire arrows and the crown of the Elf king. The dragon went out and killed or scared off all the elves. The pegasi were also scared off, but the Druid was able to calm one of them and bring it back with him.

Loot: The Pegasus and two Darkvision Binoculars.

All in all, it ended up pretty well. Nobody died, and everyone had fun. They learned that Chromatic Dragons still exist (though I don't think any of them doubted it) and got a sweet pegasus out of it, too.

Anyway, the leader of the Knights (Captain Coriander), will be back. One of the foes they fought was a necromancer, who had been using a corrupt ritual that would raise her as a Revenant when she died. Now, she's travelling the land, creating an elite team of all the people the party has ticked off (which is a lot of people), and Captain Coriander will most likely join the group.

I will warn them about the Revenant, of course--I'm planning on having the Divination Teacher at the Grand Academy of Magic (their next destination) warn them about having a Revenant after them, though I intend to keep who it is a surprise.

Anyway, thank all of you for your suggestions, once more! I couldn't have turned that encounter around like I did without your advice! :)