An interesting thing happened on the way to the underworld today...

[Sinfire Titan]

6 encounters total, 5 minute breaks after the first three. 6 hour break after the 5th.

Party consists of a Dwarven Fighter with longspear (optimized for reach combat), an Eladrin Swordmage with a Longspear and Aegis of Assault (Lightning Leash is sick with two reach attackers), an Elven Rogue who's gotten two party members killed, and me (Human Wizard with crappy stats). Everyone is level 2.

The first encounter was two groups of Kobolds in a narrow hallway. They had us flanked, and three Kobold Slingers were giving the Swordmage and Fighter a pain in the ass. Then the Rogue and I took out the three Skirmishers blocking the entrance into the next room, which let the Fighter up to  slaughter the Slingers (Reach weapons rule) and the Swordmage taking out the mounted kobolds that were behind us. The last one flees to alert the rest of the warren. We rested up, as both the Swordmage and the Rogue were hurt bad.

The second encounter was 2 rounds long. I take out about 5 enemies total with Scorching Burst, while the Swordmage and Fighter do all of the real work. No big problem.

Third encounter had us against 4 scorpions. Took them out in one round. Not a challenge.

The 4th encounter had one major problem. The enemy was mounted on bats. And they were well out of the party's range for the first three rounds. Rogue started trying to pick the riders off, when I point out that taking out their mounts would kill the riders too. Then I realize that I have Sleep as one of my spells. Two bats and kobolds got taken out, the last one died to the Rogue's bow. Much hilarity ensues as I joke about my Sleep spell having saved our hides 3 times now.

The 5th encounter was a little more annoying. If I had my Sleep spell for it, the fight would have ended in round 2 because 90% of the enemies were in one giant group. About 20 kobolds in total. Scorching Burst+Spears took out the majority of them, but the Swordmage got hurt pretty badly. He seems to be unable to go a fight without blowing his second wind.

We rest for the day after killing off the last of the kobolds, then divide the loot between us. Another day or so passes as we hike out of their caves.

Then the Dragon showed up. Out of all of us, only the Swordmage spotted it. And only he got to act in the dragon's surprise round. A CR 3 White Dragon, that scared the living piss out of us. Stunned the party, then used it's breath weapon by blowing one of it's two action points.

Well, it landed right next to me. And tore about 50% of my HP out of my robes. I GTFO of there ASAP, as I know better than fighting a dragon hand-to-hand. The Fighter and Swordmage, on the other hand, would soon become lunchmeat.

The dragon drops the Swordmage after two rounds of combat, and the Fighter follows two rounds later. By that time, the Fighter had survived two breath weapons and bloodied the beast, so it wasn't happy.

Note that there was a huge debate about the Action Point/Encounter limit, which was resolved when I looked up the rule in the PHB. WotC gave dragons 2 AP, but forgot that they can only use 1 in any given encounter (and the tactics forgot about this rule).

Well, it lands right next to the Rogue this time. We had thankfully spread out to avoid getting cluster-fucked again, and the dragon felt like carrying out Karmic Retribution on the Rogue (who caused the Swordmage and Fighter to reroll their characters prior to this session, which we don't let him live down and is a story in it's own right). Rogue is wearing Goggles of Life Sight, so he activates them to find out the dragon's HP. It's sitting at 22, and not happy about it. He takes a swing, provoking an AoO by switching weapons to do so. He misses miserably, and the dragon drops him to the Dying status.

Well, by this time I had done what any smart Wizard would have done. I ran as far as I could get while formulating a counter-attack. I reach the Swordmage, who's failed two of three death saves. I then use the Heal skill to use his Second Wind. Promtly, the DM says it does no good (he doesn't remember about the way healing works in 4E). I take 5 minutes to find the rule, buying precious time for me to formulate a backup plan in case I was wrong. I wasn't, and the Swordmage got back up. He charges while I tend to the Fighter (who had a healing potion left).

The dragon misses this time around, and the Fighter charges in to try his hand. Both the Swordmage and the Fighter wiff (but the fighter still gets some damage in), and the Dragon hits them with it's breath weapon again.

This normally would have killed us all, but the Swordmage responds with a counterattack. He hadn't used his Daily power yet, and tried it as a last resort. He hit the Reflex, but the DM reminded him that he was Weakened and that the dragon was resistant to Cold damage. The Swordmage is still doing 3d10+17, so all he needs to do is roll amazingly.

He rolls a 8, 9, and 10 right in front of the party. Dragon drops from 18 to 8.

And then it's just me and a dragon. I had one round to act before it slaughtered me, and no AP to spend. I got one shot with Magic Missile, and no way to reroll.

I hit and killed it with 9 damage. TPK averted.

[AlterFrom]

Gotta love these kind of things. My group's version was with the Black Dragon in Treasure of Talon Pass. After taking down 5 of the 6 party members, the wizard managed to drop it with a few Clouds of Daggers (none of which actually hit) worth of automatic damage. 

However, regarding Monster Action Points: Monster Manual, page 6. "Unlike PCs, a monster can spend more than 1 action point in a single encounter [...]"

[Banor]

Epic Win here Magic Missile savin' the day

[X-Codes]

Awesome story.  Get a Tactlord.

[Eepop]

We had quite the close call Sunday.  We had:
Warforged Fighter
Human Warlock
Elven Ranger
Drow Rogue
Gnome Bard

I don't know the names of the monsters we were facing, but it was a skeleton with 4 swords, and 3 skeleton magi's with 3 heads that kept summoning minions. The battle took place in a room with a pretty tight 10-ft wide 20-ft long hallway leading into it.

We got clogged up in the hallway for awhile with the 4 sword skeleton and minions, and we were pretty beat up by the time we made it into the room.  But once in there, we struggled to hit them enough to keep the minions under control.  The ranger and the rogue retreated first, the bard revived a dying warlock to send him out after them, the bard tried to escape but got surrounded by summoned minions.  With no real option of using his powers, he pulled out his dagger and hoped for the best, killing a couple minions.  The fighter slowly shifted towards the exit, and finally started rolling well enough to down some enemies.  The bard worked his way back in to help the fighter flank, only for both of them to be knocked down dying, while meanwhile some summoned minions dropped the escaping warlock.  Then the ranger and rogue dropped the remaining minions and the final skeleton magi.  They saved the bard after two failed saving throws, but before he had to roll for a third failure.  The warlock had to roll once for a third failure, but succeeded.  And the warforged would have died if it weren't for the racial ability.  The rogue was at 6 HP, and the Ranger was in the mid 20s.

For the most part everyone did everything right, we just all rolled horribly.  Probably the worst I've ever seen for 5 people to roll at the same time.  We were on the precipice of TPK and barely pulled it out...on a fight that, had we rolled normally, probably would have been a moderate challenge at best.

But on the upside, it definitely reminded us that our characters are not invulnerable by any means of the imagination, which is good to be reminded of from time to time.

[Sinfire Titan]

Eepop, your's is an example of bad luck more so than the DM being tactical. That Dragon had us the minute I missed with Sleep (or when it showed up) and my last-minute inspiration and the Rogue's Goggles of Lifesight telling us how much HP it had left was the only thing that got us through that fight. That, and a miracle damage roll from the Swordmage is what saved the party.

That being said, surviving the Skull Lords is no easy feat. They are annoying.

[Eepop]

Yeah, very different stories, just both on the verge of TPK.  Just wanted to add my two cents in case any "4E makes the players invincible" person strolls past this thread and tries to dismiss your story as a one time thing.

[Sinfire Titan]

Yeah, very different stories, just both on the verge of TPK.  Just wanted to add my two cents in case any "4E makes the players invincible" person strolls past this thread and tries to dismiss your story as a one time thing.

It isn't the first time my Wizard has won the encounter, just the first time I've been the last one standing at the end of an encounter. Sleep is the broken, although the Fighter in my party insists that Flaming Sphere is better. I'd like to remind him of how little Flaming Sphere would have helped in several situations we've been in.