Is this encounter too tough-NOT FOR THE ENDLESS SEAS CAMPAIGN

[Babale]

If I found out anyone in the Endless Seas campaign read this, I will gut them with my own hands and then make them walk the plank.







The party is composed of 4 level 7 characters and one ECL 7 Gnoll expert NPC. At the start of the encounter, they will all be at full health. Two of them are Full Casters, one of whom also has a high hp.
The characters are an Artificier, a Sorcerer, a Swashbuckler, a Cleric, and a Savage Species style Ethergaunt (full casting, d8 HD), plus a gnoll with 4 levels of Expert. They also have six unarmed Kobold Zombies, using only a slam attack.

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Is facing one Megaraptor and 4 Deinonychus (All from MMI) an apropriate encounter? This website says it will be Very Difficult, although I doubt that... Certainly the Deinonychus will tear through the Zombies, but they will be slowed down enough to be killed with a few Scorching Rays and Fire Orbs, making the only real challenge the Megaraptor. The environment is going to be a cave where the dinosaurs live, where the PCs will walk into the middle before having the Megaraptor come up from an inner chamber and the Deinonychus from behind. This is meant to take the PCs down from full health to close to incap, with a few perhaps falling in negatives. There is a Dragon Shaman in the next room, unconscious, who could hypothetically be healed in time to join the battle, but the PCs don't know about him. Finally, I intend to play the dinosaurs at their intelligence level-not targeting the Cleric just to stop him from healing, for example.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

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Yeah it will be tough but they should win. Some will fall into the negatives.

[Kelpstrand]

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Do none of them have will save spells at all?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how a party of 3 level 7 full casters an Artificer, and a Swashbuckler + Zombie distraction cast can't take 24HD of Animals with a +3 Will save average.

As far as I can tell, Glitterdust and this game is already done. Add a confusion if you want to play it safe. I don't even see them really needing to use 4th level spells if they don't want to.

They could even use Color Spray to beat everything but the Megaraptor, who after a Glitterdust isn't even a big deal.

[Babale]

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They have 1 Charm Monster, which I guess they could use; but other then that, the Sorcerer is a blaster and the Ethergaunt is utility.

[Kelpstrand]

Well I have no idea how to judge a party that can't cast Glitterdust. They are completely beyond my comprehension.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

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They have 1 Charm Monster, which I guess they could use; but other then that, the Sorcerer is a blaster and the Ethergaunt is utility.

The charm monster makes it a little easier. The party should win the fight and I think its a good and memorable setup. Whether a PC goes to negative depends on a lot of factors in the setup and dice rolls, so it's hard to determine if it will happen ahead of time. I don't you have to worry about a TPK. But in a pinch you do have the "unconscious" NPC in the next room...

[Babale]

Nope, they don't have glitterdust. I guess they could Charm the megaraptor, though. The sorcerer is focusing on Chain Maximized Lesser Fire Orbs, while the Ethergaunt's main offense is Maximized Scorching Ray.

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I don't intend to let them die. These are vicious fighting animals; I can always say a few weren't at max health. But I want to see if they can win straight.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

I think what you may have to worry about is

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the party being followed by a new pet dinosaur...hope they have a large stash of zombie food.

[Babale]

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I'm pretty sure they don't have enough HD to control the Megaraptor. Maybe a Deinonychus, but at most one. Besides, with the encounters that will soon follow, they deserve a pet dino...

[Kelpstrand]

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Charm Monster has nothing to do with HD. It's just if it fails the will save, then they can basically run it around if any of them have handle animal checks. Of course, Charm isn't dominate, so it's not something you really need to worry about.

[Babale]

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I meant not enough HD to animate the Megaraptor. Also, Charm Person is out-the ethergaunt didn't prepare it. Here is the spell list:
Level Number
0th 4
1st 7
2nd 5
3rd 4
4th 3

0th level
Detect Poison
Detect Magic
Compass
Light

1st
Mage Armour x2 X
Magic Missile x2 X
Detect Undead
Alarm
Floating Disk

2nd
Protection from Arrows
Scorching Ray x4 XX

3rd
Maximized Scorching Ray
Protection from Energy
Major Illusion X
Fly

4th
Animate Dead X
Scry X
Detect Scrying

[HamsterOfTheGod]

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Also remember, the dino will be friendly to the caster not necessarily his party so what happens in the middle of combat when charm monster is cast is up to you to adjudicate.

[Babale]

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True. Also, I see no reason why he'll attack his own pack-family before friends, after all.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

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True. Also, I see no reason why he'll attack his own pack-family before friends, after all.

True. The dino would probably stop another pack mate from harming the caster though this "communication" does not have to be an attack on a pack mate. Or if his pack mates come under attack by the caster that might break the spell. So it depends on your adjudication of charm spells...

For ex, spose the sorcerer casts charm monster on the megaraptor. (Don't forget to give the raptor a +5 on the save because its in the middle of combat.) If it's successful AND no party member is attacking it AND the sorcerer is also successful at the handle animal check to "push" the raptor into say going backing off from combat (DC 15 or 17 if the raptor), do the other dino's follow the boss dino's lead?

[Babale]

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I doubt they'd follow his lead, as it IS inside their home cave-nowhere to retreat.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

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[I doubt they'd follow his lead, as it IS inside their home cave-nowhere to retreat.

That's cool. Charm spells are fun but a headache to adjudicate both in and out of combat. As long as you have a consistent and clear idea in your mind of what the spell can do, then it's OK.

Otherwise, it looks like it will be a fun melee.

[Jair Barik]

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I'd say leave as is. The most memorable encounters players have are ones where players are incapped e.g. in my game the party were ambushed in their respective rooms whilst going to sleep 1 was knocked to the negatives by a kobold assasin another was reduced to 0 strength by his poisons. Afterwards though people were saying "remember that time when..." because it feels like they are actually threatened and close to defeat your party will remember the encounter, their mistakes and how they can improve their strategy for the futute

[Babale]

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Thanks for the tips guys! This does seem like a challenging fight, but I realized that perhaps it won't be enough. The Ethergaunt still has 3 or so Scorching Rays, and the Sorcerer has all his spells ready. So, if I add in a bunch (10?) of unarmed kobolds (They are semi-sentinent kobolds who serve the dinosaurs as normal kobolds serve dragons) who run around using the Zombie-style slam attack, and basically missing all the time, but setting up flanks for the dinos, would this make the fight way too hard?

[Thrawn183]

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This is a perfect example of why slow is such an amazing spell.

[Babale]

I don't see Slow helping too much. Also, noone has it prepared. Also, will the unarmed kobolds make too big of a difference?

[Eldariel]

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Given the party basically has no spellcasters (seems both the casters are pretending to be archers), a heavily martial opposition is going to be somewhat challenging.

Even more surprising is the fact that their AoE-capabilities seem to be basically nil (unless the melee-types have Cleave); usually blasters at least have Fireball/Lightning Bolt-type effects handy. Given that the party seems to lack means to demolish bunches of mooks, the extra Kobolds might actually be relevant.

That said, since they aren't doing anything but improving the actual monsters' combat capabilities, I wouldn't worry. AoOs and Cleaves still cut the mooks down pretty fast and they add a nice touch to the encounter. Go for it; either they'll win just fine or they're better off dead anyways :P But yeah, the encounter is fair so they'll win if they play it out well.

I don't see Slow helping too much. Also, noone has it prepared. Also, will the unarmed kobolds make too big of a difference?

Slow among other things negates monsters full attack, which is pretty big for dinosaurs like Deinonychus relying on the sheer number of attacks to do anything. Also, skirmishing vs. slowed enemies is pretty easy as they can only move or only attack (though standard action charges still exist).

Mostly though, getting 3/4th of their offense cut away along with half their movement speed and miscellaneous penalties to everything is just huge. They have no Will-save to speak of (like all non-Dire animals) so they'll probably all fail. Glitterdust would be even worse though as they'd mostly attack air and even when they hit the right square, they'd still have 50% miss chance. Blinding predators that rely on their sight tends to be good.

[Babale]

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Oh, the Sorcerer has Fireballs too, and the Ethergaunt is more utility, but if I'm not mistaken, he also has But the Sorcerer is focusing on heavy damage to 1 guy with orbs, and the Ethergaunt is a Utility caster. The cave is too low for Fly to make a difference, though.

And as for Slow: The cave is pretty darn small, and the PCs will be surrounded. No skirmishing possible.

[Kelpstrand]

Slow would basically limit all the monsters to one attack per round. But yeah, this is actually a reason why Color Spray is so awesome, since Color Spray aimed right actually knocks unconscious 3/4ths of the enemy for slaughter.

[Babale]

Guess I'm lucky the Sorcerer is too Blasty to have that, and the Ethergaunt too Utility.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

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Thanks for the tips guys! This does seem like a challenging fight, but I realized that perhaps it won't be enough. The Ethergaunt still has 3 or so Scorching Rays, and the Sorcerer has all his spells ready. So, if I add in a bunch (10?) of unarmed kobolds (They are semi-sentinent kobolds who serve the dinosaurs as normal kobolds serve dragons) who run around using the Zombie-style slam attack, and basically missing all the time, but setting up flanks for the dinos, would this make the fight way too hard?

I wouldn't do it because it detracts from the "OMGDinosaurBBQ" moment unless maybe your players already know that the kobolds follow the dinos.

Maybe if you give them the same stats or say the stats for a small dog but make them baby dinos...

But it shouldn't change the combat much...er what's the AC of your squishiest PCs, I assume it's the sorceror...

[Babale]

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They might hit the sorcerer, except that they have no weapons. They get -1, I think. I'm using the Kobold Zombie slam attack, as they're unarmed. And the whole OMG DINOSAURS moment isn't going to happen-they don't know what Dinosaurs are. They already got trampled by some Hardosaur or other, and saw a Triceratops (Which I described, on a sucessful Knowledge check, as "what you'd expect a Dire Horrid Gorgon to look like".