Was The Party Doomed From The Start?

[Rejakor]

Since the vast majority of the monsters in the MMs, Fiend Folios, and other books with monsters in them (95%+) do not have access to BFC spells of the type you listed, most adventures I have read do not have BFC in them(at all), and I could count on one hand the number of GMs i've seen use BFC spells of the type you listed, at cons, at tables, when starting up or with years of experience, I can only assume your experience to be idiosyncratic or atypical.

[veekie]

'inching towards the edge of the fog' WAS BECAUSE THEY COULD ONLY MOVE 5'.  If you ACTUALLY READ what BINDER POSTED you can SEE that they spent the round they were solid fogged before tentacles MOVING 5' TOWARDS THE EDGE.

Which is all they thought they could do.  And all Binder thought they could do, too.  Unless he's a gygaxian DM who loves going after the fact 'YOU COULD HAVE DOUBLE MOVED LOL NOOB' when the player says 'alright, I move towards the edge as fast as I can'.


As for the 'insultory tone', whatever that is, i'm not inserting lots of 'oh well *I* think it's this way but whatever I mean we're all friends and that's what's important right' because I don't really think you're 5 years old.  If you can't deal with contradictory points of view without excessive padding, possibly try a bit harder not to misread posts on a continual basis in a way that ALWAYS supports the point you're trying to make.  Little tip:  Normally, people who often misread things misread them in both ways, not ways that always support their viewpoint.


2.  You were saying the party just had bad tactics.  You've said that a bunch of times.  One of the things that implies is that they had options they didn't use that were better than the options they used.  Binder stated that they didn't have those options on their sheets, so unless they could pull them out of magical fairyland like saying pazuzu three times fast, then they couldn't have undertaken those options because they didn't have them.

3.  WHAT PART OF THE WORD 'MAXIMUM' DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND.  The average grapple of those casters was likely something more like +3, and the average escape artist for the people who had 'trained it' was more likely something like 5, or 6(3 or 4 ranks(crossclass), +2 or +3 dex).

4.  -1 per 10'.  DC to hear people talking is 0.  MAXIMUM listen mod was probably +12 (ranger, max ranks and wis of 16, so, unlikely).  So, to make it impossible, he'd have to be 300 feet away.  That's for the spell.  You can chug a potion without speaking loudly, and why he couldn't chug it pre-combat we will NEVER KNOW.  You can be good at combat tactics without being intelligent.  That's how 'being trained' works.  However, if you are superhumanly intelligent, you are going to be able to work out that maybe you should drink your potion BEFORE you approach the people and start the fightings.

Sandbagged actions is pulling punches if there is no reason for those sandbagged actions.  I don't really think the Alter Self was unreasonable in combat.  A BIT unrealistic, sure, but not versimilitude breaking.  Not using the surprise round in an ambush, though?  That's punch pulling.

5.  YOU HAVE YET TO PROVE THE PARTY 'REACTED BADLY' TOWARDS THE SOLID FOG.  FUCKING.  PROVE.  IT.  BEFORE.  YOU.  STATE.  IT.  AS.  A.  FACT.

PCs got nerfed by 5' movement only in solid fog instead of being able to double move.  Caster got nerfed by 10' Evard's.  The two things balance each other out.  If anything these mistakes tilt in favour of the party because they have more chance of escaping the evard's cause they have to spend less rounds being regrappled while moving.  So that makes the encounter as written even MORE ridiculously TPKish.

PLEASE LEARN HOW GRAPPLE WORKS.  IF THEY ESCAPE AND THEN GET GRAPPLED AGAIN, WHICH THEY WILL, BECAUSE AFTER YOU LEAVE A GRAPPLE YOU ONLY HAVE ONE MOVE ACTION LEFT AND CAN ONLY MOVE 5' CAUSE OF SOLID FOG SO YOU GET GRAPPLED AGAIN NEXT ROUND, THEY STILL TAKE GRAPPLE DAMAGE.  GETTING GRAPPLED CAUSES GRAPPLE DAMAGE.

In order to escape in the first place they need to beat the DMs roll by, at best, 10 or more.  Then they don't even get out of the area of effect.  Then on the caster's turn they get GRAPPLED AGAIN LOL.  And hey if this goes on for 2 rounds, which it will, 1 round if the caster didn't herp derp pop wings lol, you're getting EATEN BY TEETH FOR THE WIN while it happens!

Oh, and, by the way; A wizard has a first level spell that gives him +10 on hide checks.  Alter Self into a whisper gnome gives +8.  Alter Self into that MMIII thing gives +16 or something.  There's a cloak in AEG that gives +4 to hide in wilderness environments.  He could have had 5 ranks in it, and a dex of +2, and that cloak or similar camo gear, and gotten a +9 mod pretty easily, without buffs of any kind.  Plus he was an amount of distance away from the PCs, and had cover.  Let's say he was 70' away, had trained hide, and had mundane camo robes (+2 skill tool).  +7 hide, +2 skill tool, +7 (70' away) = +16 to hide.  If he rolls a 10 (or takes 10) on his hide check, that's DC 26 spot to spot him.  The ranger is the only one who could have feasibly maxed out spot, and let's say he has.  He has 9 ranks, and +2 wis.  He has a masterwork skill tool, but he's not using it, and so doesn't get the bonus.  11+11=22.  22 != 26.  With buffs, even if the wizard rolls a 1 and the ranger rolls a 20, the ranger does not see the wizard.  At least without houseruled 20 autosuccess on skill checks rules.

So uh, yeah, they totally didn't build their characters right.  That's why they didn't spot the wizard.  It's not like spotting enemies is really hard if they're any sort of distance away and have any sort of Hide training or equipment or buffs.

Oh yes, and on this topic, to silence the INEVITABLE counterpoint - but the wizard wouldn't just walk off and buff and then come back!  Well yes, he would, and while he was at it he'd put up False Life and Mage Armour and Shield and Displacement and Blur and the innumerable other buffs he might want to have, and then he'd wander back and Solid Fog and Tentaclerape the party.


So... so far, you've completely ignored the fact that winning one grapple check against the Evards doesn't stop it, because Solid Fog is around it and you get tentacled AGAIN if once you move your 5' away from the Evard's effect.  And that most of the people caught in the Evard's had very little chance of making those checks.  And that even the beatsticks would have been held up for rounds even with the Wizard faffing about casting Alter Self and chugging potions.

It was also unlikely they'd spot the wizard and stop it being an ambush, given distance modifiers to spot DCs and the ABUNDANCE of ways to buff Hide.


So.. y'know.. if you throw this encounter against the PCs... they're going to get Solid Fogged and then Evard'sd in the surprise and first rounds.  Then, 2nd round, VORTEX OF LOLS.  Then, dead party.  Punches were pulled and this encounter STILL fooked the PCs, despite them making very few or zero mistakes.  THUS, IT IS A BAD ENCOUNTER.

Even without a surprise round, unless one of the PCs is an ubercharger and instaKOs the wizard, then, they still die.  AND THAT IS A BAD ENCOUNTER TOO, BECAUSE INSTAKO ISN'T REALLY CHALLENGING OR FUN.  ROCKET TAG IS BAD, MKAY.


As for your last point.. jesus.

6.  Alright, let me answer this question in the form of a question.  Which do you think is more 'challenging'?  A level 7 wizard who has prepared Hold Portal and Magic Missile and Analyze Dweomer as his combat spells for the day, or a level 7 wizard with Fog Cloud, Evard's Black Tentacles, Alter Self, False Life, Empowered Lesser Orb Of Cold, Searing Quick Maximized Quick Empowered Fireball?  Do you think they are both CR 7?  There is no such thing as a 'standard wizard'.  A wizard is defined by what spells he has prepared, and thus, his CR changes depending on what he has prepared.  The second question.  Do you think a party of unoptimized Fighters will find certain encounters as easy as a party of optimized Wizards?  Do you think they should fight the same CR encounters?

The only meaningful evaluation of an encounter is specific.  The CR system is a guideline, an often inaccurate one.  It's entirely possible to kill a CR 10 party with a CR 1 encounter, with zero chance of the party living.


And finally.

The encounter didn't become 'deadly' when the wizard used Vortex of Teeth.  The encounter became deadly when Inna threw a wizard with those spells prepared and that attack strat and that ambush position against the party.  The point it became a TPK was when they failed their autospot checks.  Solid Fog + Evard's + Vortex of Teeth is a death knell for a party of that composition and preparedness level.

Punches were pulled, in the form of lol surprise round potion chug, and in the form of lol alter self, and STILL the encounter TPK'd them.  That's a pretty resounding piece of proof for 'perhaps it was a poorly designed encounter'.

While its a little too heated, I have to agree with most of the points made, other than punches being pulled. The fight is indeed not played to its full potential, but people make bad calls all the time in a pinch, Int 30 or no.

Once battle was joined however, unless the wizard had a change of heart(i.e. did not read the Evil Overlord List), they were already dead. The only question is how many rounds, if they somehow broke free of the BFC, not all of them would be getting out(unless someone used IHS to shatter the whole effect), which leaves them with a half strength party against a freely acting wizard. Who STILL has the jump on the party members who broke out, what with having blown their actions getting out.