Accidental TPK

[Sir_Mopalot]

So I was running a 4E game, and one of my favorite things about 4E is how easily you can scale it to number of players, while maintaining average difficulty for encounters. Now, that worked, until I had three players, a level 5 Warden, a level 5 Cleric, and a level 4 Druid, fighting 3 Dire wolves (level 5 skirmishers). Now, the wolves got surprise, since my players forgot to set a watch O.o but still, they didn't even manage to bloody the third wolf. Is there something really wrong with this? A layer of difficulty I'm not spotting? Or is it just that I out-tacticed/rolled my players?

[Oracle_Hunter]

(1) Was that a Striker Druid or a Controller Druid? If it was a Controller Druid, then you ran into DPR problems - the PCs could not do enough damage before they ran out of heals.

(2) What were the conditions of the battle? Did you let them have armor or not? What was the terrain like.

(3) Assist-monsters are deadlier than they look. By getting easy CA and doing 2d8+4 damage to PCs on the ground, they can kill really, really quickly.

[Sir_Mopalot]

You know, I think that you may have hit on a big part of the problem: namely, that the druid is, if my memory serves, kind of a wishy-washy middle ground between the two. Which, of course, is not optimized at all.
As far as conditions, it was night, but thanks to a sunblade one character was carrying, nobody had any trouble with light. terrain-wise, open ground, although unless you're suggesting that difficult terrain would have helped them, I really only needed to have the wolves walk up to one character, kill them, and then move on.
And yeah, I noticed the ridiculous amounts of damage. between the ability to knock down characters who grant them combat advantage and the extra damage to prone characters, it was a fairly short fight. Two possible rules snafus that I am now wondering about are whether the warden makes death saving throws twice a turn or not (he died before the cleric could get over to him to stabilize him), and whether I was correct in saying that standing up from prone causes attacks of opportunity.

[nightwyrm]

Two possible rules snafus that I am now wondering about are whether the warden makes death saving throws twice a turn or not (he died before the cleric could get over to him to stabilize him), and whether I was correct in saying that standing up from prone causes attacks of opportunity.

1. The warden can make a saving throw against a condition a save can end at the beginning of his turn. Whether a death save is a condition that a save can end is debatable, but the important word is that he can, not that he has to.

2. Standing up does not provoke opportunity attacks in 4e.

[Sir_Mopalot]

Well, both of those things would have been nice to know then. :D
ah well, it's gonna make the story interesting anyway.

[Oracle_Hunter]

and whether I was correct in saying that standing up from prone causes attacks of opportunity.

Heavens no! Standing up no longer causes OAs, which means falling down is no longer a death sentence.

No wonder your party died instantly.

[Sir_Mopalot]

Yeah, I guess I should have figured about the same time I was swatting them back on their rears every time whomever I was focusing on tried to stand up.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Yeah, I guess I should have figured about the same time I was swatting them back on their rears every time whomever I was focusing on tried to stand up.

That wouldn't even have worked in 3.5, where standing up from prone does provoke AoOs: the AoO happens before the standing up, and you can't be tripped.

You'd think your players would just have stopped standing up and taken the penalty (-2 or whatever?) over the opportunity attacks at some point, though.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

Now, I haven't had a lot of experience with 4E, so I don't know as this will be as helpful as it is in 3.X, but I would assume it wouldn't be a problem. But, when you figured out your party was going to get absolutely destroyed, did you try fudging die rolls, and that sort of thing. In my experience, that's kind of the default go to when you don't want a TPK.

[Sir_Mopalot]

well, in 3.5, dire wolves don't automatically succeed on their trip checks, either. So... Yeah.

Edit: Well, usually I do, quite a bit more than I like, to be honest, and I was trying out what would happen if it were a (more or less) fair encounter between them and the enemies. Seems that it was a little bit less fair than I'd hoped though.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

well, in 3.5, dire wolves don't automatically succeed on their trip checks, either. So... Yeah.

Point conceded. But usually, I find either fudging the attack or damage roll (depending on the situation) usually work the best. But again, I don't really know 4E.

[Sir_Mopalot]

Like I said, I totally agree, and I usually do, but I was consciously avoiding it, because I think I may do it too often.

[Oracle_Hunter]

You'd think your players would just have stopped standing up and taken the penalty (-2 or whatever?) over the opportunity attacks at some point, though.

If the PCs stay on the ground, they take 2d8+4 (rather than 1d8+4) damage from successful attacks. Which are at +2 because of CA granted by attacking Prone targets.

You do not want to be on the ground with Dire Wolves around.

[Shpadoinkle]

Now, the wolves got surprise, since my players forgot to set a watch O.o but still, they didn't even manage to bloody the third wolf. Is there something really wrong with this? A layer of difficulty I'm not spotting? Or is it just that I out-tacticed/rolled my players?

Read the part in bold. Getting the drop on someone can EASILY determine the outcome of a batle.

[Thajocoth]

They didn't bloody the 3rd one...

So... They bloodied 2... Instead of taking one out of the fight completely.

And the enemies swarmed one player at a time...

These enemies had WAY better tactics.

And, even if you let the warden make 2 death saves per turn, you can only get a strike towards death once per turn. The point of the extra save is that they can stave off things better than others, not that they die quicker.

Also, getting up from prone doesn't cause AOs, as people have stated.



If I were in your position, I'd tell the players these things, and allow a re-do of the fight... With the enemy getting the surprise again if the players fail their perception checks for it again. (You had them roll that, right? Perception-10 vs the enemy's stealth? With any of the 3 succeeding resulting in no surprise round? The -10 is for sleeping.)


Also, I usually keep in mind emergency help the players might get if things are going too badly. Though, we nearly TPKed in a friend of mine's campaign even when the cavalry rode in... They killed one of the 3 paladins on horseback that just happened to arrive and aid us, and the other two were bloodied and ready to run themselves... (I didn't get hit that fight actually... Level 3 Warforged Artificer.)

[MartinHarper]

With the enemy getting the surprise again if the players fail their perception checks for it again. (You had them roll that, right? Perception-10 vs the enemy's stealth? With any of the 3 succeeding resulting in no surprise round? The -10 is for sleeping.)

Ahh, you don't normally get to make active Perception checks when you're asleep.

[DarknessLord]

Ahh, you don't normally get to make active Perception checks when you're asleep.

Right, so meaning the -10 cancels out the +10 they get for passive, meaning that the just use their skill bonus, which if I'm right at most could be.... There may be ways to get even more...

+5 trained +5 Wis (18 score +2 race*) +2 race* +2 1/2 level +3 skill focus
Elves happen to get Wisdom and perception bonuses, so there is at least 1 race that could get both

17, The wolves have a stealth score of 5, assuming you have someone who was tricked out in perception like that you'd need to roll a 13 for each of them or else they'd notice one of them coming, even if they all have crappy perception, I would still roll for the attacking enemies in the future...

[Asbestos]

+5 trained +5 Wis (18 score +2 race*) +2 race* +2 1/2 level +3 skill focus
Elves happen to get Wisdom and perception bonuses, so there is at least 1 race that could get both

Speaking from DM experience... elves are the flipping bane of my existence. An elf PC with a high Wis and trained in Perception has a ludicrous passive Perception score and it only gets crazier when they roll. At least they don't trance like Eladrin and I can still spring things on them in the night.

Btw, if you want to see some really mean Dire Wolves, put a couple of Bugbear Warriors on them. The issue is that Dire Wolves can synergize damn well with each other/other monsters that benefit in some crazy way from having combat advantage (and you were murdering your players with OAs)

[Oracle_Hunter]

Speaking from DM experience... elves are the flipping bane of my existence. An elf PC with a high Wis and trained in Perception has a ludicrous passive Perception score and it only gets crazier when they roll. At least they don't trance like Eladrin and I can still spring things on them in the night.

Very true. I made an Elven Cleric with a Passive Perception of 33 at 10th level

I called him "Panoptulous"

I'm not really sure how to fix this, aside from cheap tricks. For instance, an Illusionary Floor over a Pit Trap can't be detected by Perception

[MartinHarper]

The wolves have a stealth score of 5, assuming you have someone who was tricked out in perception like that you'd need to roll a 13 for each of them or else they'd notice one of them coming, even if they all have crappy perception.

DMG p36-37: only the group member with the lowest Stealth rolls the check. Also, any players that fail to hear the wolves will be surprised, even if Elfy McHearing-Goode hears them coming.

[Calinero]

....standing up no longer provokes attacks of opportunity?

....

*goes to have a few words with his DM*