Wanted: Monster Info

[Nabirius]

Ok setting the scene after a long dungeon crawl with 4 encounters that day our group emerges, tired sweaty and beaten from several higher level encounters. Our mage has nearly fallen in battle twice, our assassin went down once. But we come out victorious, or so we think, we encounter a group of other adventures hired by the same guy for the same job, who also killed a different group whose bodies are laying outside the dungeon. I've never heard of enemies with these powers before, and I haven't been able to locate any enemies that had similar abilities in the levels in the DM claims these guys were (10-11). I offer 1 freshly baked internet cookie to anyone who can locate the monsters themselves in the compendium or other source books, or can definitively tell me that they are something else entirely.

A 'Hexer' - Had a 'star curse' as a minor action, that made her other curses deal damage. Had an At-Will "beast curse" that turned an enemy into a small creature with no abilities that grants combat advantage until the end of her next turn.

A 'Cavalier'- Had an at-will that grants nearby allies attacks, he also attacks, not sure if it has to hit to work. Had and At-will radiant counter attack if you attack an adjacent ally.

A 'Paladin'- Had a divine challenge that gave a -3 when attacking people that weren't him and ~8 dmg. I honestly don't remember much about him.

A 'Barbarian'- Immune to fire. Had a reach attack, it could shift opponents. Had an at-will counter attack if you attack an ally withing a certain #of squares he could shift 5 squares and attack. Had 2 action points.

A 'Ranger'- Could turn invisible. Had twin strike (or something similar), had a at-will attack that applied an ongoing poison damage effect. Had some sort of Sniper shot that had an enormous to-hit bonus. Had some sort of immediate reaction that hit everyone in a burst 1 and pushed them back if they attacked him.

A 'Fire Mage'- Could create a blast 4 radius of fire that did 10 fire damage when you entered, or ended your turn in the radius. Had an aura of vulnerability to fire. Had a fire twin-strike like ability. Had a teleport that left nearby enemies with an ongoing 10 fire damage. Had and ability that increased the amount of ongoing fire damage on a target.

A 'Rouge'- Could shift 2 spaces, could either do it as a minor, could do 2 in a turn, or had some other ability to allow him to shift everywhere. Had a large crit range. Did more damage when he attacked an enemy he had combat advantage against. He may have been making multiple attacks in a turn.

Anyway the DM made it clear we weren't allowed to run and this promptly lead to a TPK on our 5 level 7 asses. I kinda want to know what killed us.

[Sipex]

From the looks of things, your DM made the party on his own using the classes and existing monsters as bases for ideas. That said, how severe was the TPK (ie: are your characters actually dead)? This sounds a lot like a 'introduce the rivals who kick your ass' battle trope.

[Nabirius]

From the looks of things, your DM made the party on his own using the classes and existing monsters as bases for ideas. That said, how severe was the TPK (ie: are your characters actually dead)? This sounds a lot like a 'introduce the rivals who kick your ass' battle trope.

We woke up several hours later, having lost all of our equipment, hunted down the group that killed us, and murdered them all in their sleep. Then we burned the bodies on the off chance that someone tries to resurrect them, they're not coming back. The DM just wanted to win a fight, so says our mutual friend he often talks to.

What you said about the monsters being player character/monsters is what I thought too, but the DM claims that they are all legit monsters. But obviously I'm skeptical.

[Sipex]

Oh yeah, they can still be legit monsters and be fully custom made, as long as your DM made sure his monsters have everything and work like a 4e monster should. It just sounds like he used the party's 'classes' as a basis for designing each of their skills. Hence why the rogue has a backstab-esque ability.

[Nabirius]

Oh yeah, they can still be legit monsters and be fully custom made, as long as your DM made sure his monsters have everything and work like a 4e monster should. It just sounds like he used the party's 'classes' as a basis for designing each of their skills. Hence why the rogue has a backstab-esque ability.

What would that entail, though? This is more of a personal curiosity for if I ever want to run a 4e campaign (I likely won't but still). There is massive diversity among monsters in 4e a magma elemental is very different from a spell-weaver. What is behaving like it should?

[NecroRebel]

What would that entail, though? This is more of a personal curiosity for if I ever want to run a 4e campaign (I likely won't but still). There is massive diversity among monsters in 4e a magma elemental is very different from a spell-weaver. What is behaving like it should?

There are very specific guidelines for what the average defenses for a monster of a given level and role should be, what their hit points should be, where their attack bonuses should be, and how much damage their attacks deal. There is a fair amount of simple eyeballing in play regarding how many attack powers things should have and how often they should be able to be used (at-will, encounter, up to 5 different recharge variants...), as well as what non-damage rider effects would be appropriate, but it's entirely possible to homebrew balanced enemies. These guidelines are in the DMG1, though they've been subject to heavy errata (practically a complete redo of the actual numbers), so getting the latest errata off the WotC site is probably the best way to do it.

I don't know how many PCs you have in your party, but if I were to make most of those things you mentioned, I'd make them as equal-level elite creatures. An equal number of equal-level elite creatures is a very hard (level+4) battle that would be expected to eat half of a party's daily resources. If the monsters were higher-level than the party or if they outnumbered them, that could very easily be an impossible-hard battle, especially after a day of adventuring.

Overall, none of the abilities you've described would be out of place on a monster. It was probably just that they were too strong or numerous for you, especially when you had already been tired out from the earlier fights.

[Nabirius]

There are very specific guidelines for what the average defenses for a monster of a given level and role should be, what their hit points should be, where their attack bonuses should be, and how much damage their attacks deal. There is a fair amount of simple eyeballing in play regarding how many attack powers things should have and how often they should be able to be used (at-will, encounter, up to 5 different recharge variants...), as well as what non-damage rider effects would be appropriate, but it's entirely possible to homebrew balanced enemies. These guidelines are in the DMG1, though they've been subject to heavy errata (practically a complete redo of the actual numbers), so getting the latest errata off the WotC site is probably the best way to do it.

I don't know how many PCs you have in your party, but if I were to make most of those things you mentioned, I'd make them as equal-level elite creatures. An equal number of equal-level elite creatures is a very hard (level+4) battle that would be expected to eat half of a party's daily resources. If the monsters were higher-level than the party or if they outnumbered them, that could very easily be an impossible-hard battle, especially after a day of adventuring.

Overall, none of the abilities you've described would be out of place on a monster. It was probably just that they were too strong or numerous for you, especially when you had already been tired out from the earlier fights.

Not sure if I said this yet, but the DM intended to kill us.

There are 7 of us, but only 5 that night, though the DM was well aware of that fact before hand. Is it just me or do monsters often have way cooler abilities than players?

[NecroRebel]

You did say that the DM intended to kill you. I simply pointed out that there are rules for monster-building, and that he could very well have made an unbeatable battle while staying well within those rules. Anyway, most of those abilities sound like pretty direct mimics of what level ~11 PCs are actually capable of... Though level 11 is where tons and tons of spiffy stuff comes into play, since that's when you can get paragon-tier feats and the first paragon path features.

Actually, rereading the OP I notice that you actually did say that you were level 7 at the time. Even if these guys had been standard monsters, you would've been in deep trouble. 7 L10s would be a level 12 encounter for 5 PCs; at L+5, that's the very very top of what you're supposed to have any chance of victory. If they were L11s, that'd be a L13 encounter, if they were L10 elites (again, how I'd make them) a L16 encounter, and L11 elites would be a L17 encounter. If the DM wants to kill you, you basically just die, and unless he's got a good explanation that is quickly forthcoming, you should probably find a different one. Murderousness in a DM is a bad sign.

[Nabirius]

You did say that the DM intended to kill you. I simply pointed out that there are rules for monster-building, and that he could very well have made an unbeatable battle while staying well within those rules. Anyway, most of those abilities sound like pretty direct mimics of what level ~11 PCs are actually capable of... Though level 11 is where tons and tons of spiffy stuff comes into play, since that's when you can get paragon-tier feats and the first paragon path features.

Actually, rereading the OP I notice that you actually did say that you were level 7 at the time. Even if these guys had been standard monsters, you would've been in deep trouble. 7 L10s would be a level 12 encounter for 5 PCs; at L+5, that's the very very top of what you're supposed to have any chance of victory. If they were L11s, that'd be a L13 encounter, if they were L10 elites (again, how I'd make them) a L16 encounter, and L11 elites would be a L17 encounter. If the DM wants to kill you, you basically just die, and unless he's got a good explanation that is quickly forthcoming, you should probably find a different one. Murderousness in a DM is a bad sign.

Every DM has their bad habits. Mine likes winning, unfortunately, and when we played a game with him last time he had several ludicrously OP (compared to the party) DMPCs run around and show off. But it meant that he got to 'win' by beating himself. In this case he just got tired of us beating everything and decided to get stompy. I'm not a big fan of his style, but he's done in 2~3 sessions, so whatever.

But if you are asking, no, there was no real story reason for us losing. There was a reason for the fight, but there's no reason we had to lose.

[Alejandro]

Wow, this GM sounds extremely lame. There is no winning and losing in a tabletop RPG. DMPCs that show off are often a warning sign. Also, if you kept beating everything, that's his fault.

[TopCheese]

Wow, this GM sounds extremely lame. There is no winning and losing in a tabletop RPG. DMPCs that show off are often a warning sign. Also, if you kept beating everything, that's his fault.

+1

I have a suggestion.. Just a small one... >:D

Have everyone in the party do stuff that will make them die.. Or come close to it. Seriously if you are going to die and the DM wants to "win" then go out on your own terms with a big bang. I had a DM like the OP and well...

My favorite session (3.5 game)

ME: "I grapple the dragon"
DM: "You can't you are a wizard"
ME: "So? What does that have to do with anything, I'm gonna try!"

*AoO on me, I try to grapple the dragon, fail and it grapples me*

Next round

ME: "Hey guys I'm holding the dragon... Fire all your spells!"

Of course the dragon was a good DMPC but heck with it we were tired of it. My PC got a hero's burial for "hold down" the dragon as is got slaughtered by spells and such.

Hey if you are gonna die, do it in style.