OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

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Shock
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Shock »

Much like my last cooking attempt, I was waiting to see what happens with the flaming oil

Tyragorn is at the top of the stairs M18
Flynnarrel
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Flynnarrel »

Yeah, we have a good choke point, no need to go onto the stairs to engage for the melee fighters.
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Flynnarrel
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Flynnarrel »

Nice!
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Arkrite
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Arkrite »

I'm mostly just laughing because I expected this would be incredibly deadly for you guys. As you can see these guys can do a fair bit of damage on a hit and they get two attacks per round.
Admittedly allowing you to funnel them in the stairwell is bad tactics, but these guys aren't genius level opponents, so good work there.

I'm also kind of trying to get a feel for how difficult these combats will be.
The campaign as written is pure fricking evil. They expect level 1 or level 2 characters to take on two or three... Uh, okay, honestly I can't remember if it was wraiths or wights.
Either way this was written back when they had level drain as an ability, and they were immune to nonmagical attacks.
And this campaign wasn't designed to hand out magic weapons. :shock:

So take the unreasonable enounters and say four changes to rulesets since this module came out... Well, needless to say I'l revamping some of the encounters. As you might imagine I'm trying to put together some combat encounters that I thought would be challenging without being a flat out TPK situation.

I just wasn't expecting you guys to completely decimate everything you encountered so far ;~)

I think I now understand how Davies felt when he put a big fight in front of us and Zalman would wipe the floor with them before the first round was over. :lol:
Shock
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Shock »

Well, in fairness, it's just been a handful of goblins and these lizardmen so far. The dice had a fair amount of bad luck for the goblins. Going last is pretty much a death sentence for them.

And this second lizardman could still do some significant damage if our luck turns.

This is my first time playing 5E so I'm still feeling things out as well. I certainly don't feel safe yet :D
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Tattooedman
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Tattooedman »

Shock covered my thoughts on the matter, and also like him this is my first time playing 5e, so I'm channeling my 3e feelings of nervousness at early levels because it only takes a few bad rolls to turn something into a threat.

Also, I'll get a post for Zasio up later tonight after i get off work.
Jabroniville wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:45 pm
LOl- "The Tattooed Man"? What kind of ABSOLUTE DILDO would refer to himself as "The Tattooed Man" :P!?!
Flynnarrel
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Flynnarrel »

Goblins are typically the whipping boys of D&D and those lizard men could drop any of us in one turn - they did over half the tanky paladin's hit points in ONE hit, and, as you said, they get TWO. If we had faced them in the open, like, the forest or especially swamp, they'd have tore through us like tissue paper. If Tyr's first hit hadn't been a freakin' CRIT (which was awesome), he could easily be making death rolls right now.

I guess what I'm saying is 'you're good', don't go through the bother of revising everything just yet. You're doing good at your first foray into DM-ing. :)
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stavaros_the_arcane
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by stavaros_the_arcane »

Balancing encounters can be tricky, especially since these are our first combats. Its just something you have to practice at.

From my personal experience its especially hard at early levels since most PCs and sufficiently difficult foes only have a single hit die, so a lucky hit or two from monsters can bring down a first level adventurer, potentially causing an unfortunate chain reaction. So 1st level fights can be a bit one sided, either the enemies get mowed down no problem or half the party goes down.

Just be careful not to over-correct by ramping up the difficulty of next fight to far.
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Flynnarrel »

You can, of course, avoid this problem by leveling us to two. Just bein' helpful. :)
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Arkrite
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Arkrite »

stavaros_the_arcane wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:10 pm Balancing encounters can be tricky, especially since these are our first combats. Its just something you have to practice at.

From my personal experience its especially hard at early levels since most PCs and sufficiently difficult foes only have a single hit die, so a lucky hit or two from monsters can bring down a first level adventurer, potentially causing an unfortunate chain reaction. So 1st level fights can be a bit one sided, either the enemies get mowed down no problem or half the party goes down.
Yeah, and that's where I'm at right now.
Those goblins are a joke... but in those numbers they could have been a reasonable threat.
Heck, by the rules as written they were a little higher threat than I should have thrown at you.

The reoccurring thing I've heard is that the number of attacks per round are what can define who wins and who dies.

But it is hard to throw too much at a low level team because, as you've noted, there isn't much room for error.
stavaros_the_arcane wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:10 pm Just be careful not to over-correct by ramping up the difficulty of next fight to far.
Wight.
Err, right!
Flynnarrel wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:16 am You can, of course, avoid this problem by leveling us to two. Just bein' helpful. :)
So the solution to you guys running rampant through enemies is to make you even stronger?
...
Sounds legit. ;~)
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stavaros_the_arcane
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by stavaros_the_arcane »

Yeah number of attacks per round can make a lot of difference. Its why sometimes a lower CR encounter with many enemies can sometimes be more difficult than a going up against a single high CR enemy because the heroes all have only one target to focus all their attacks on. But on the other hand that means the single high CR foe might be able to down a hero anytime it hits.

I watch a lot of D&D related youtube videos on this sort of thing.
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Arkrite
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Arkrite »

Feel free to assess partial cover for targets in between Aldan and the target.
While doing that might keep the creature alive for another round, and sooth my ego, I don't think it would make the game more fun. :lol:
Besides, I'm assuming Aldan would have moved to make himself more useful, and lets be honest, this fight was kind of a forgone conclusion by this point. Barring a lot of really bad rolls on your part ;~)

Also congratulations, for surviving your first real combat encounters with the evil that lurks in the town you have unlocked the inner potential of your characters.
Welcome to level 2.

I am invoking my right as GM to institute some house rules in regards to HP.
You get to roll. If your roll (without bonuses) is half or higher you keep the roll. If it's lower than half that dice, you bump it up to half.

So if you roll a 1d8 you'd roll, and anything over a four you'd keep that. If you rolled under a four you'd bump it up to a 4. Then add your con bonus.

You're big damn heroes, dammit, and I need a buffer to make sure I don't accidentally kill you ;~)
Flynnarrel
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Flynnarrel »

FYI, [For 1 hour, a candle sheds bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for an additional 5 feet.] He wouldn't be able to see much.

Sister Bright has the Produce Flame druid cantrip which sheds light like a torch [20ft bright light, additional 20' dim light]. Tyragorn would have torches in his Explorer's pack.
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Arkrite
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by Arkrite »

And if that fails you can just light a goblin on fire. ;~)
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stavaros_the_arcane
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Re: OOC: Against the Cult of the Reptile God - D&D 5E - Recruiting Closed

Post by stavaros_the_arcane »

Yeah Georgia started with an Entertainer's pack which has candles rather than torches which most 'packs' come with. On the other hand she also has darkvision so its not such a big deal for her.
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