# Dead Rising Encounter too tough



## Kzach (Jan 30, 2010)

Man, I knew it was going to be way too hard, so I had Torrent come back early from her investigations so she was there before the encounter occurred. Even with her, it was an almost TPK.

This would be a tough encounter for 1st-level groups without having just come from a very tough encounter (White Wyrm Band), but stacking on top of it is just... whoa.

I also think the XP budget is askew. 200xp for those boneshard skellies is a bit low given their damage output.


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## Daern (Jan 30, 2010)

sounds like you put a good scare into 'em


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## Kzach (Jan 30, 2010)

Durn said:


> sounds like you put a good scare into 'em




Oh definitely.

I had a blast. The players were all, "This encounter is too tough, we want our money back!" though 

And to be fair, it is insanely difficult. Four mobs 4 levels higher than the party.

Although, I did some research and the module text is wrong. It says the boneshard explosion is 3d6+4 whereas the compendium says it's 2d6+3. That and their damage output is 1d4/1d8 not 1d8/1d10.


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## Sepp (Jan 30, 2010)

Durn said:


> sounds like you put a good scare into 'em




As one of the players, I have to disagree with that. It merely illustrated why encounters PCs are supposed to run from are a problem. There was no fear, merely frustration. 

When an At Will attack can take out 1/3 the health of the leader, and has an ongoing damage component, tactical retreat is an unlikely option, due to the number of OAs it will provoke. Likewise, defeating our opponents means we take massive damage. Boneshard Burst was doing 1/2 the total HP of the paladin tank, and slightly more then that on the artificer. 

The encounter needs to be rethought, unless the entire party is ranged and can safely stay out of the room. Moving in to engage the foes effectively traps those that do, unless they are willing to sacrifice a PC. And that's no fun for anyone.


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## Morrus (Jan 30, 2010)

Kzach has it right - the correct figures are as he described.  We really should put out an errated version of that one.


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## Sepp (Jan 30, 2010)

Morrus said:


> Kzach has it right - the correct figures are as he described.  We really should put out an errated version of that one.





I strongly suggest you do. That's a lot of difference in damage at this level.


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## Sepp (Jan 30, 2010)

And, I mentioned frustration earlier. I want to be clear that wasn't at the DM, I think he handled it well. And so far WOTBS has been a blast, one of the most immersive games I've been in. 

But things like this should be errata'd.


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## Kzach (Jan 30, 2010)

Sepp said:


> As one of the players, I have to disagree with that.




I can't hide from anyone!


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## Morrus (Jan 30, 2010)

I feel so terribly guilty now!


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## Sepp (Jan 31, 2010)

Morrus said:


> I feel so terribly guilty now!




Ah, guilt! *evil laugh* 

I hope it can be fixed, or at least all made aware of it.


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## Kzach (Jan 31, 2010)

Personally, I'd use skeletons instead of boneshards. The skeletons control PC movement whilst the wight darts in and around the PC's, but neither is too hard to take out after having burned through dailies in the previous encounter. It's an 'about right' encounter for 1st-level.

Either that, or change the text to read that the encounter takes place after they have had a chance to extended rest so that the can have levelled to 2nd, or at least be fully refreshed, before taking on the encounter.


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## Kzach (Jan 31, 2010)

Having a look through the rest of the encounters, a number of monsters seem really out of whack with comparable Compendium/Monster Builder monsters.

Feris, for example, has the defences and attacks of an elite/solo but is written as a standard with a standard's hit points, no action points or saving throw bonuses. So I'm assuming he's a standard, but with defences 4-5 points higher than they should be, and attacks roughly one die higher than they should be, as well as attack bonuses that are 1-2 points higher than other artillery.


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## rangda (Jan 31, 2010)

Sepp said:


> The encounter needs to be rethought, unless the entire party is ranged and can safely stay out of the room. Moving in to engage the foes effectively traps those that do, unless they are willing to sacrifice a PC. And that's no fun for anyone.




I haven't started running WotBS yet as my players want to finish Scales of War first (blech), but IMO this encounter feels like a throw in.  It's one of the few in the entire module that doesn't help contribute to the overall plot.  When I run, I plan on replacing it with another encounter with one of the various groups in the city. (I'll probably build encounters for the Black Horse, Shahalesti, & White Wyrms and run the one for whichever group the PC's piss off the most.)  Coming back to rest is the perfect time for the party to get ambushed by any of these groups...


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## Daern (Jan 31, 2010)

I've taken to just making up equivalent monsters out of the MB for these adventures.  I like to customize anyways, and it eliminates weird surprises.  Anyways, I didn't run this one, like dude said, it didn't seem to contribute to plot or tension.


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## Truename (Jan 31, 2010)

rangda said:


> I haven't started running WotBS yet as my players want to finish Scales of War first (blech), but IMO this encounter feels like a throw in.  It's one of the few in the entire module that doesn't help contribute to the overall plot.




I went through and compared the 4e version to the 3.5e version, and you're right. As I recall, this encounter and the dwarven encounters in Act 5 are new. They're also the weakest, in my opinion. The dwarf encounter doesn't feel quite as tacked on as Dead Rising, but the execution just seems silly... out of place compared to the others.


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## Blackbrrd (Jan 31, 2010)

The dwarf-encounter as in the whole skill-challenge stuff towards the end of the first module? I actually really liked it. It really shows off how Dwarves are supposed to live in the campaign world. It feels a bit like settlers in the wild west or something.


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## Morrus (Feb 1, 2010)

The Dwarf stuff and the Dianoem Mk IV all pay off in later adventures.


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## EugeneZ (Feb 1, 2010)

Durn said:


> I've taken to just making up equivalent monsters out of the MB for these adventures.  I like to customize anyways, and it eliminates weird surprises.  Anyways, I didn't run this one, like dude said, it didn't seem to contribute to plot or tension.




It actually worked out really well for me. One of the PCs was killed in the depository tower (wisp solon got a crit on her with its most powerful power, if I remember correctly) and Buron was reviving her. So I had the dead wake as an effect of the ressurection spell.

That said, I agree with everyone here who says this encounter is way too tough. If the DM shows no mercy and the PCs hold their ground, I simply don't see how they can possibly survive.


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## nvrtrustanelf (Feb 2, 2010)

My players also had a rough time with this encounter and they believe even with the appropiate burst damage it still would have been tough.

During the encounter I had every party member below zero up, save one. 2 of the party ended up dying. Afterwards I was speaking to my players and they didn't mind the burst damage as much as they minded th small quarters that prevented them from avoiding it.

My party was unsure if what to do when thier numbers were down to 2 and they still had 2 boneshards to down. They didn't want to unleash the undead on an already taxed city. I allowed them to escape to avoid a tpk (I had the boneshards go back to thier tombs when the party left). I told them they could find other Resistance members to come back and clean the place out.


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## John Doom (Feb 8, 2010)

I think there was a thread, or part of a discussion about this encounter somewhere before. 

My party would have TPK'd, and they would have done so quickly. 

However, with the magic of a DM screen and them not seeing the dice rolls, three survived the first several rounds and luckily I had forgotten the first bone explosion at bloody. I also changed the bone explosions also burst to hurt their nearby cohorts for that same massive damage.

With two still standing and a couple of fudged dice-rolls later the party avoided the TPK.


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## Kzach (Feb 9, 2010)

John Doom said:


> With two still standing and a couple of fudged dice-rolls later the party avoided the TPK.




Oh I could never do that.

In fact, the biggest reason why I left it as is instead of reducing the difficulty of the encounter was that I wanted the PLAYERS to know that I won't fudge encounters to suit them.

It's up to THEM to know they're in over their heads and up to THEM to get out of sticky situations.

The only thing I might've changed, in retrospect (apart from readjusting damage to the correct dice), would've been the space of the encounter, allowing for more cover opportunities to facilitate a quick escape should the need arise.

And even then, players should know better than to run head-long into an encounter they know nothing about. Positioning themselves in a manner that prevents escape is mostly their own damn fault


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## EugeneZ (Feb 10, 2010)

Kzach said:


> It's up to THEM to know they're in over their heads and up to THEM to get out of sticky situations.




Well, pretty harsh, in my view. It's your responsibility as a DM to balance the encounters appropriately. If, indeed, you felt this encounter should be incredibly hard or even unbeatable, that's fine -- but it seems more of a case of you not realizing the monsters are overpowered. At that point, in my view, you are risking the character's lives because of your mistake, rather than a planned encounter.

The difference might seem negligible, and depending on your style, it might be, but I think players deserve a fair warning (even a cryptic one) about the odds they're walking into -- or in this case, that are walking in on them. There are times when an encounter places players in a situation where they are unable to rescue one or more PCs, and they are killed -- fair, when warnings were not heeded, or caution not taken. But when it's your mistake that cost the PC their life, I feel fudging is warranted.


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## Chimera (Feb 18, 2010)

Early on in this campaign, about 3 years ago, we invented a term for the encounters you find in WotBS.

*Ryan Nock Level Appropriate Encounter*


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## RangerWickett (Feb 18, 2010)

Chimera said:


> Early on in this campaign, about 3 years ago, we invented a term for the encounters you find in WotBS.
> 
> *Ryan Nock Level Appropriate Encounter*




 How many TPKs did you have?

In my defense, it was 3e, when the math behind balancing encounters was a little less refined than it is now in 4e.


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## Matey (Feb 18, 2010)

With our defender dead-dead and two others making death saves, the DM plucked one of the two remaining boneshards off the mat and made the other fail to explode.  Humiliating.

The out-of-turn exploding damage (42-126 total, burst 3) meant that our warlock was declining to apply her curse damage because the prospect of bloodying or killing a boneshard posed too high a danger of wiping out a couple of down or almost-down PCs.  I don't see how any low level melee PC can be expected to make it through that fight regardless of the amount of healing available.

On the bright side, because we were defending a church, we got a cut-rate deal on the defender's ressurection.


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## Blackbrrd (Feb 19, 2010)

If the players had a little more room they could maybe try some remote detonation? For this to work the area would have to be expanded by the DM in advance. In addition, a lot of visual cues would probably help a lot. Something like: "You can see the virulent energies leaking out from cracks in the bones, you don't think they can be held in much longer". Just having the boneshards explode without warning isn't exactly nice... 

A working tactic would probably be for the melee people to step/move back from one boneshard at the time, while the ranged attackers try to kill it while it's out of burst range. I think I will add a small skill-challenge to this encounter if the players don't pick up my hints. I do like the idea of an encounter that is something else than tank'n'spank having played a lot of fun raid encounters in Age of Conan lately. I will try to avoid a 4 hour wipe feast though.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 15, 2010)

Ugg...I just ran this encounter and I wish I had read this beforehand.

It was almost a TPK. One character died and another would have had he not taken a background that allowed him to fail four death saves before dying.

The three bone-shard skeletons were all bunched up. The party sorcerer hit them all with Blazing Starfall and bloodied two. I rolled really well and everyone including skeleton #3 ate a lot of necrotic damage. Even with the necrotic resistance this barrage bloodied the third skeleton and thus there was a third explosion. Our poor assassin never had a chance.

Half the party was down at that point and those that remained retreated as our walking time bomb friends pursued them. If I hadn't had Buron rush in and administer some healing words, they would have had no hope.


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## Blackbrrd (Mar 18, 2010)

I changed the damage to 1d6+4 and to a close burst 1. In addition I changed the layout so that there was a lot more room and gave plenty of visual hints about impending explosions. In addition I made them completely mindless, attacking the closest target no matter what.

The result was an fun encounter and by the end of it they had gotten the hang of it. Two of the characters had push/slide 1 at-will powers which really helped when they understood what was happening.


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