Was The Party Doomed From The Start?

[McPoyo]

My point earlier, is if the dice cause a death, then they cause a death. That's the point of the dice, as a random arbiter of resolution.

Also, while the combination was strong, there was one round the wizard did nothing at all, and the party just didn't act quick enough for the five rounds they fought. The ones who got out were ill-equipped to handle any encounter at range, which is problematic enough on its own. It comes down to party makeup, and the fact that everyone was failing checks. I had a PC nearly die once because he kept failing the DC 10 escape artist check to escape the net he was in. He had a +4 mod. He just rolled that low for 9 combat rounds. It happens sometimes.

[Rejakor]

Two of the party members had trained escape artist.

That would, under normal math, give them a slightly lower than 50% chance of escaping the tentacles' grapple each round and then taking a 5' step.  And they were how far from the edge of the solid fog?

Plus, in order to even have that 45% chance or whatever, they would have to be in no or light armour, i.e. they aren't frontliner classes, i.e. they don't have many hp, i.e. they're going to die to teeth + tentacles a lot faster than the platewearers.

The point is not that the paladin didn't have a ranged weapon or whatever.  Like I keep saying to Sunic, killing someone because herp derp you want them to optimize more isn't good DMing.  If you want them to be X powerful, you can just give them twenty levels instead of 10, and a bonus to their stats and damage and crap.  You are the DM.  You can do that.  Optimizing a character is a skill that has a place in DnD but it's not something that separates 'good' from 'bad'.

Obviously the party did have ranged, but they were the people who couldn't escape the fog/tentacles.  Which is just more fuel for the one point I made and that everyone on the side of 'herp derp they deserved to die what idiots' keeps not addressing - 'rocks fall, you die' is NEVER a valid reason to kill the party.  It's just bad, lazy DMing.  If you can't find a way to challenge the party without killing them, then you need to sit down and figure out why, and then fix that problem.  Because it means the game is only playable if the characters either don't get challenged or if every encounter or every 1/3rd encounter or 1/10th encounter, something is going to instawin all over their faces and kill them utterly and it's roll new characters time.  And that a good storyline does not make.

[veekie]

To be fair, with the rotating party composition even a very good DM would be hard pressed to throw a suitably challenging and stimulating encounter on the fly.

[Rejakor]

A couple of times now i've mentioned that if he made a mistake then that is alright - everyone makes mistakes.


But considering that Innabinder keeps hinting that he thinks it was an awright encounter (they fought DRAGONS man etc) and that it's their fault for not preparing properly etc...

Either he thinks that after he dropped that rumour about tentacles, he was forced to use the solid fog, the teeth, the flying, and every other part of the encounter, or he didn't think about it at the time and then the party died and now he is trying to justify it as 'reasonable' or 'good DMing'.  Which, it isn't.  And, he wasn't.  He could totally have changed that encounter on the fly, had three or four 'tentacles from the ground' encounters depending on party composition, from Lesser Black Tentacles, Silent Image, and Glitterdust all the way to three casters dropping dimension lock, solid fog, tentacles and lingering flames all over the place, or just impro'd something if the party coughed up an entirely unexpected composition.

I don't have a problem if he made a mistake.  I have a problem with justifying a mistake as 'good DMing'.  That's what I have a problem with.

[Gods_Trick]

Or to sum up: it was a bad encounter and it was mostly your fault GM  .

That said, there were extenuating circumstances, but hopefully a lesson was learned by all, players & GM. Cue Disney music guys 

[McPoyo]

And I feel it had nothing to do with party optimization, and everything to do with starting useful tactics quicker. The transposition was good, but everything else it looks like people were slow to do anything about.

[Rejakor]

They did not have any options, McPoyo.

You can't teleport if you do not have some kind of thing that lets you teleport.  Like, say, a spell, or a maneuver.  You can't escape a grapple if you need to roll a 20 and have 2 rounds of chances to escape the grapple before you die.  Unless you have a spell or effect that grants freedom of movement, you don't get freedom of movement.

The only way they could have 'started useful tactics quicker' is by being spread out to begin with.  Which would let one person get surrounded and eaten by closet melee or ambushed more easily by sneak attack monsters, both of which are more common than G.O.D style wizards.

Other than double-moving out of the cloud in the 1st round they didn't miss many tricks.  That combo is just deadly on people who don't have teleportation or FoM.  Which, the DM knew they didn't have, and still used the combo on them.  Case fucking closed.

[McPoyo]

The lack of intelligent movement to begin with was my point. It would have prevented a world of hurt.

[veekie]

But 'intelligent' movement isn't smart when it sets you up for being trashed by other, more common means.

[McPoyo]

If it means you can at least move around (or step back into the hindering mist), it does. Being unable to see your foes and have hindered movement is worse than being able to see ad move and getting power attacked.

[veekie]

Consider a dispersed party formation and oh...a Wall of Ice/Force/whatever.

[McPoyo]

Immobile is still better than blind and immobile.

[Rejakor]

Hey, McPoyo - Which is more common?

Sneaky monsters that ambush you; Ranged attackers that ambush you; Closet trolls that ambush you;  G.O.D style BFC wizards.


And of the G.O.D style BFC 'wizards', which is a more common combo?  Wall Of Ice to split the party + melee brutes to eat cut off party members, or solid fog + evard's black tentacles + aoe constant damage spell?

You're essentially saying the party should have read the DMs mind and known what he was going to do before he did it.  Bunching up is not fatal against evard's.  It's only fatal against solid fog + evard's + aoe constant dmg.

Spreading out is fatal against all number of things.

[McPoyo]

No, I'm saying metagaming to provide a reason to stay inside somewhere that blinds your ability to see and restricts your movement makes no sense. At least if you are outside the fog you can retaliate against an attacker. Especially in a world of Fireballs. It just makes no sense, unless the party spent the round seriously buffing themselves instead, there's just no reason not to get out of the fog. Wall of Ice is irrelevant when the party is already neutralized because they can barely move and cannot see each other.

[Gods_Trick]

If I recall the OP, these are basically newbs and casual gamers. One did recognise Evards, but dude, when I was new I thought a Fighter was so awesome he could shrug off Wiz spells. Silly, bad mistakes happen, and the players didn't or couldn't predict the GM well. Tactics takes awhile.

If they are newbs, ITS NOT THEIR FAULT.

[Rejakor]

McPoyo, you seem to be sure that the players could 'get out of the solid fog'.  How?

Players can, if they know how, double move to move 10' towards an edge.  Of a 20' radius effect.  Most times they'll try to move only once.  Especially if they're newbs.

They had one round of reaction after getting Fogged, the next round the wizard cast Evard's.  Even if the high-grapple players had rolled really well, they still would have not been able to reach the edge, even if they double moved both rounds.  The round after that, the wizard used that aoe dmg spell and the evard's gets to grab people it missed, again.

Even if you make an escape artist check to escape, you only get to move 5' before it gets to grapple you again, and do grapple damage again, etc etc.  All the while this aoe dmg spell is eating you.

And if you're not out, 4th round the wizard is now flying.  And probably shooting you with empowered ray of enfeeblements or whatever else the DM decided was a challenge level appropriate spell selection.


The ONLY mistake they made was not spreading out.  And y'know, that's not even a bad mistake.  Spreading out (see: Splitting the Party) is generally viewed as a bad idea because the vast majority of enemies do NOT have aoe but LOVE eating solo characters, and the minority of enemy aoes that exist (fireball etc) aren't viewed as that deadly - not one-hit-kill deadly, anyway.  Even a 10' separation means Spot and Listen checks are at a serious disadvantage and a squishy guy could get his ass handed to him in the surprise round/1st round while the 20' move speed types hustle over.

[McPoyo]

And if they had moved (I've yet to see how "get out of this murky fog shit" is something newbs cannot understand, even if they don't know the rules), fewer would have been caught by the evards.

It was a beatable encounter. Tough, yes, because it was an ambush, but winnable except for that paralysation of the players to think about the system using non-video game logic.

[Rejakor]

McPoyo, you seem to not understand some rules of the game.

Allow me to enlighten you.

How exactly are they supposed to 'get out' of the 20' radius effect centred on them with 5' of movement?

Especially, how are they supposed to avoid the 20' radius Evard's Tentacles effect with only 5' of movement before it gets cast?

Please know what you are talking about before you talk about it.

[veekie]

And if they DID get out, they wouldn't be in much shape to take on a wizard. Not dispersed and having part of the party left behind for multiple rounds.

[Kajhera]

McPoyo, you seem to not understand some rules of the game.

Allow me to enlighten you.

How exactly are they supposed to 'get out' of the 20' radius effect centred on them with 5' of movement?

Especially, how are they supposed to avoid the 20' radius Evard's Tentacles effect with only 5' of movement before it gets cast?

Please know what you are talking about before you talk about it.

Question: Does the 5' of movement refer to how far you can move in a round, or your move speed?

If it's your move speed... *looks up movement rules* you have 10' of movement.