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InaVegt
2008-06-05, 06:13 PM
Sp, I ran this encounter over IRC tonight.

First, as 4E seemed to lend itself to tactical combat more, I decided to create a map requiring quite a bit of tactics. I also included a skill challenge, to make the battle more interesting.

Now, let me first say that picking the monsters was easy, it's a matter of picking enough monsters fitting your encounter theme, to fill the encounter budget. A skill challenge counts as a number of monsters equal to its complexity.

The player layout:

Human wizard
Half elf infernal warlock
Dwarven cleric of Bahamut
Elven Paladin of Kord
Human cleric of Sehanine

Monster/challenge layout:
1 level 1 complexity 1 skill challenge (Healing a woman allergic to rats)
3 giant rats (minion 1)
2 dire rats (brute 1)
1 rat swarm (skirmisher 2)
Total XP: 500

Starting positions:

0 |A....~~......|
1 |.....~~......|
2-----.............|
3..........~~......|
4..ES...TH----.....----
5~~~~~~.~~| |~~.~~~~~~
6~~~~~~.~~| |~~r~~~~~~
7.........----..R......
8..........~~.Zr.**....
9------....~~.R..**....
9 |.......r........
1 |....~~.---------
2 |....~~.|
3 |....~~.|
4 |....~~.|
0123456789012356789012

A few things I learned through this encounter:

1. Tactical errors can have a huge impact on the further flow of combat.
1.a. Tactics have become much more important, but at the encounter level, not the chargen level.
2. When you're used to 3.x, some things look less/more powerful than they really are. (Dire rats didn't seem too strong, but they can take a /lot/ before they go out.)
3. Combat is fun from the DM side too.

Now, for a quick recap of combat.

Human cleric is busy with the skill challenge for most of combat, basically a noncombatant.
Warlock gets lucky with powers at first, giving him much more ability to soak damage. Is pretty good at damage dealing for most of combat (kills of 2 minions and 2 brutes, IIRC).
Paladin takes damage, and a lot of it. Also deals enough damage to have an impact.
Wizard makes a few tactical errors (Didn't realize the bridges were chokepoints, for one. The daggers power would've been so useful there), but mostly managed to do his job as a controller.
Dwarven cleric heals and buffs, as well as doing some damage.

The minions didn't die as easily as I expected them to. One of them lasted to the very end (mostly due to attacking the human cleric instead of those who actually did combat)

The brutes were tougher than I expected, not because they did so much damage a round, but because they could take so much before they went out (partially the reason combat went longer than planned, I think)

The swarm was tough too, not as much HP as the brutes, but resistance to targeted attacks makes them pretty hard to kill if used right (They are really the controller's territory to kill, instead of the striker's) If the controller had used cloud of daggers on them, it'd've been dead much quicker.

Combat took longer than expected, and I guess for the following reasons:

1. infamiliarity with the system.
2. brutes lengthen combat, because you can only do so much damage.

Kabump
2008-06-05, 07:05 PM
That sounds like a nice way to break into the new combat rules. I can imagine combat taking a bit of time while still figuring out all of the nuances. Im getting my books at midnite tonite, I might borrow this encounter idea if thats alright with you to throw at them to see if they like the system. They aren't sold on what they have heard, this seems like a pretty good way to introduce everything.

InaVegt
2008-06-05, 07:07 PM
That sounds like a nice way to break into the new combat rules. I can imagine combat taking a bit of time while still figuring out all of the nuances. Im getting my books at midnite tonite, I might borrow this encounter idea if thats alright with you to throw at them to see if they like the system. They aren't sold on what they have heard, this seems like a pretty good way to introduce everything.

Sure, go ahead.

Be sure to remind them that tactics matter though.

SamTheCleric
2008-06-05, 09:58 PM
Looks like a suitably tough encounter you came up with. Wish I coulda seen it played out. :smallcool: