After much discussion, Alexander suggested trying to lure the dragon back to the Warforged room. In theory, this would give the party 2 more allies in the fight and more importantly, 2 more targets.
As the party assembled in the warforged room, Rudy fired a crossbow bolt at the dragon, hitting it for a small amount a damage. A quick chase around a few corners and the dragon found itself surprised and surrounded. The first, surprise round, saw the dragon take substantial damage. Damakos hit with a nasty fire based spell as did many of the melee combatants.
Liberal use of action points, along with daily and encounter skills, by the party resulted in combat that lasted only 3 rounds before the death of the dragon.
I must add as the DM. I was seriously concerned the party would be overmatched. I didn't question their use of surprise, and with the addition of the warforged, this encounter was not as challenging as I had hoped. Still, the party proved to me their ability to use their environment to their advantage. I had hoped they would use the warforged, which they did, Kuppies and Damakos hid out on balconies blasting away with ranged spells, Leenia stayed on the floor to offer healing, and the others, used flanking, marking, etc to pummel the dragon into mush.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Let's not forget the 6' 7" Dragonborn warrior with the greataxe. He crits for 1d12+17, he climbs balconies, he breathes fire and he did 4 points of damage that whole fight!
Hats off to Leenia for excellent spell selection. After the dragon decided to freeze me and smack me around for 23 points of damage in the first round, she used her area heal spell (Rudy got caught in the breath weapon, too), weakened the dragon to make sure he didn't do that kind of damage again, and healed me back to full (plus extra).
Not too shabby for a level 1 cleric. And all in a single round. Thanks for saving my scaly hide.
Agreed. Leenia ended that fight for us. The moment that crazy hit/healing power landed, healed everyone back up to full, AND ensured the dragon would do half damage in the next round, we knew it was all over.
See what happens when the cleric puts down the longbow?
Props to everyone on this fight. We really did maximize our positioning and tactics to get the most out of it. I think from this fight we learned a few things:
(1) Combat advantage on an opponent is key.
(2) Actions points can be pretty powerful. The extra +3 bonus we get from action points is tremendously useful in making sure a daily power lands. It's way better to use an encounter power. THEN spend an action point and do the daily power so you get the +3 and an extra chance of it landing.
(3) Sometimes it pays not to hack and slash everything in a dungeon. (in this case, the warforged guardians)
(4) Sometimes it may be better for the warlord to go after the hitter or striker. So the rogue or fighter make their attacks, hit or miss, then get one more round of it when the warlord's turn comes up. Especially when it comes to sneak attacks.
Another thing that crosses my mind is whether the cleric has any spells that increase a melee attack chances for another player. If Leenia can give someone a +2 to hit, then the extra attack a warlord can give is definitely more useful. Something to keep in mind.
Last, but not least- I've mentioned this before; I think the group is getting better at working together and fighting baddies. We have a bunch of smart people gathered around the table. Even note how this time we started keeping track of monster hp damage and how much we needed to roll to hit them. We're already starting to analyze and dissect those sorts of things.
So I'm sort of thinking Josh can take the kid gloves off on encounters. Feel free to make them tough. As a party, we always have the option of running away if a fight gets too tough. Sometimes a character being killed adds new history and depth to a campaign. It wouldn't be the end of the world. :)
Other lessons to be learned, don't stand next to the fighter and don't bunch up.
The fighter is going to take most of the damage (hopefully) and if there is splash damage, you don't want to be a part of that.
And clumping up makes great targets for burst attacks (breath weapons, fireball, etc). I would say that combat advantage is more important that not clumping up, but if you can keep CA while staying spread out, we should do so.
As for the order in which we attack, you can delay your action. This allows you to take your turn at a lower point in the initiative order. The trick is that you stay in that new position for the rest of the encounter. the details on this mechanic are on page 288 in the PG. If anyone wants a review or clarification before the next session, let me know.
And kick the encounters up a notch.
Good points.
One more thing - I misread how Aid Another works. It appears it could be stackable with other players, but you have to roll according to the rules below to see if it actually provides the +2 bonus. Read on for details.
(If you want to help someone detect traps, you need to roll against your own detect trap skill)
___________________
You use your action to aid another character. You can
aid an ally’s attack roll against one enemy or grant an
ally a bonus against an enemy’s next attack. You can
also use this action to aid someone else’s skill check or
ability check.
AID ANOTHER: STANDARD ACTION
✦ Attack Roll: Choose a target within your melee
reach and make a melee basic attack vs. AC 10. If
you succeed, deal no damage, but choose one ally.
That ally gets a +2 bonus to his or her next attack
roll against the target or to all defenses against the
target’s next attack. This bonus ends if not used by
the end of your next turn.
✦ Skill or Ability Check: You can instead aid a skill
check or an ability check made by an adjacent ally.
Make a DC 10 skill check or ability check. If you succeed,
you give a +2 bonus to your ally’s next check
using the same skill or ability. This bonus ends if not
used by the end of the ally’s next turn.
Post a Comment