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Apr 12, 2012 -- 8:54AM, Madfox11 wrote:

It also gives the PCs who can move the ooze or PCs around the tactical ability to avoid the aura, rewarding the players who picked those options (although with all the grabbing attacks rewarding forced movement is not necessary). Of course, since the PCs have a reason to move away from the ooze, it also helps the ooze in minimizing the chance of being surrounded by the PCs at its turn, since PCs have a reason to move away. On the other hand, if the PCs take damage when they move next to it, they have good reasons to stay next to it, triggering the AoO you mentioned. In short, assuming your players are tactical savvy and have the right builds, changing the way the aura works can have a big impact on how the fight goes

Pieter is an expert at adventure design and I hope since he regularly playtests for stuff our organized play campaign does (and helps make our stuff immensely better) he doesn't mind my sharing some of my experiences as an Encounters playtester.

With my group's level of experience with 4E and with Encounters in particular, we share Pieter's perspective and tested for how well auras and zones work. They can have a significant tactical impact on combat and can be the difference between super-fun and unfair/frustrating. This encounter was a TPK for our playtest group by a narrow margin. One of the considerations we had was to perhaps change the aura, since Instinctive Rampage can be used to ensure the aura does damage on hurt PCs. But, we did like that tactical angle... and we love how DMs can use that when needed to add auto-damage. We were really torn on the best adjustments and offered several options. We did feel strongly that advice was needed for a party of 4 (which our playtest was) and 6. In the end, Chris Sims (the Developer) added advice on scaling and kept the creature exactly as Pieter had it but lowered the hit points and reduced the damage dice sizes. It seems to have been a good call on his end, and speaks to the strength of Pieter's initial design. From my end, as playtester, a sigh of relief, because as a playtester you want your feedback to underscore possible issues but not gimp everything.

Apr 12, 2012 -- 8:53AM, mortaine wrote:

I can't tell what's wrong with our group, because we have a very difficult time with many of these encounters. About half of it is dice luck. Our tactics aren't that bad. I sometimes wonder if we're fostering too much of an adversarial relationship between the DM and players-- our non-kid table is markedly more "us vs. him," in my opinion.

If your DM is part of that initial DMs' table you run (great idea, by the way), consider everyone coming up with a "how to keep this fun" checklist that includes some "if things are too hard then we will do this" ideas. This might help underscore that you don't want that adversarial relationship. A good DM enjoys a bit of that challenge but doesn't truly make it adversarial - this isn't Lair Assault. One of the things with some of the encounters in this season is that they are very capable monsters - and especially in the hands of experienced DMs. Maneuvering a group of PCs into a certain location (either by ooze placement or tentacle grabs can create massive autodamage with the aura after the use of Instinctive Rampage. That alone can be the equivalent of the creature attacking four times a round instead of two. An experienced tactical DM should note this and recall the purpose of fun - you want it to be a challenge but not frustrating (which it was in your case). A good way to avoid that as DM is to not be too optimal with forced movement (for example, don't use the tentacles to set up the aura damage unless the fight is too easy) and to not use Action Points unless they are actually needed - surprise the overconfident table rather than beating down the table that has barely made it this far.

Another consideration is to offer resets so a party doesn't get so worn down that they can't face big fights. If the party made it through the last encounter but only did so with 0 surges and no dailies, give them a way to regain some of that back (such as a potion they find, a ritual scroll they can activate, an altar they can restore, etc.). This lets you have a final battle that they can truly face properly.

I had my first TPK for encounters with this session.  Most of the party started next to the altar.  Most players had very few surges and one had no surges.  The tentacles did not play much into the encounter but the jelly killed them all.  Which brings me to a question.  If the players come back with the same characters and there has been an extended rest there really is no impact to coming back from the dead correct?  Normally you come back with 4 fewer healing surges but since they would have an extended rest those would be restored. 

Apr 17, 2012 -- 8:16AM, wizardofhaws wrote:

I had my first TPK for encounters with this session.  Most of the party started next to the altar.  Most players had very few surges and one had no surges.  The tentacles did not play much into the encounter but the jelly killed them all.  Which brings me to a question.  If the players come back with the same characters and there has been an extended rest there really is no impact to coming back from the dead correct?  Normally you come back with 4 fewer healing surges but since they would have an extended rest those would be restored. 

I would play it by ear. If the group is having trouble (either the PCs with the challenge or the players with real-world morale), and the treasure could help, you could introduce it early in the next session (such as at a time when one of them investigates/searches).

In general, combat can be swingy. When I get close to a hard combat (usually the ones to end a section are) I try to review their resources and help them regain some if they need them. For example, the altar could have a name of an old good god on it, but defaced with mud. A minor action cleans it and each PC regains either 2 surges or a daily power (or some other benefit they could use). The bottom line is that Encounters allows you to change things to increase the fun of the game.