Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
This is some good critical feedback. Thank you.

I agree, it is kind of opaque design, this is somewhat intentional as right now the whole thing is a big mystery with a lot more questions than answers.

They aren't really going about it "wrong" per se; I just figured that they would explore and clear sections one at a time rather than drifting around and checking things out more or less on a whim, scraping the surface of the most areas without digging too deep.
Well yeah, because every time they try to actually clear something they get their arses kicked! That's what I'm talking about when I say it feels like they lose whenever it matters and only win when it doesn't.

A mystery with more questions than answers needs to have the answers it does have lead to other answers (even if they also lead to some questions) so that it actually starts unfolding into understanding. If they've mapped 80% they should have started to find some of those answers and have some threads to pull on at this point.

Hard to describe without a map.

Basically, the ghasts had to move through a narrow chokepoint to get to them. If they had moved forward and taken the chokepoint, they could have easily taken them down one at a time without a struggle.

Instead, they turtled up and let the ghasts completely surround them and did nothing to stem the flow of reinforcements.
I think you've probably overestimated the value of that chokepoint if fighting near it but not directly camping it makes that much difference. Even if they only fight the ghasts one at a time they're going to eat bad rolls every now and again* and they're numerically outmatched, a bad round that puts one character down and they're swamped except now they also have no way to retreat because they're pinned against the choke themselves, and they were already in tight enough quarters that the wizard was having to do spider-man impressions on the wall to get line of sight.

And that's all assuming the ghasts form an orderly queue and come through one at a time if they're camping the choke rather than taking cover on their side to force a stalemate unless the party come through into their killing ground or trying a mass shove to push the players back. Remembering that they're also intelligent enough to form alliances and make co-ordinated pincer attacks with them.

*Bearing in mind the wizard has merked themselves twice already at this point with bad rolls.