Creative Director
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The rend special attack is the best way to kill a PC, I've decided. It's extra damage (and usually a LOT of it) that gets added on to a monster that probably already does a lot of damage to begin with. I've seen rend kill characters off probably moreso than any other effect (many of them my own characters), usually because the players or the DM seem to judge said monster's threat level by eyeballing the damage it does with its standard attacks.
Example: A girallion hits you with four claws and does average damage—you take 25 points of damage, which is a little high on average for a CR 5 monster. But wait! You also get rended for an additional average damage of 16 points, raising your average damage to 41 points! That's on par with a CR 8 or CR 9 monster!
Gray Renders should be called Red Renders, cause they're probably all covered with blood all the time from rending PCs.
ANYway... what do all you DMs out there think? Is rend the secret killer of D&D? Is the cave troll from the Monster Manual III the meanest monster in its CR band? What other special attacks have you seen kill of PCs with suprising efficiency and regularity?
I'm certainly not asking for inspiration on what monsters to put into the lunchtime Maure Castle campaign I'm starting up next week here at Paizo for the other editors. But if inspiration from this thread happens, well, who am I to ignore it?
Girallons...sends shivers down my spine.
Rend is nasty as nasty can be that's for sure. It's kinda not real fair. Like its not bad enough getting hit twice (or four times) anyways, no, you gotta get torn to pieces to boot.
I think energy drain and Con damage have the highest rate of PC killoff in our games out here in Hawaii. I HATE energy drain. Kill me! Go ahead! But don't mess with my levels, baby.
I am playing a cool PC in our next game that is a paladin who used to be 18th level, and after a run in with an undead horde, is now only 5th. I can't wait. He is a shell of his former self, nothing but a broken man with no spirit left for the fight. Should be pathetic, and really fun.
But yeah, Energy drain sucks. Vampire Spawn suck. My friend out here puts them in every low level adventure I've played with him and we never have any silver or magic weapons...we're basically food that squirms a little. :)
Anyway... what do all you DMs out there think? Is rend the secret killer of D&D?
Heh. My players would laugh to hear you describe it as a "secret killer". Rend is defintely up there, though in my experience an encounter with a monster that has rend tends to be a bit all-or-nothing; PCs either put down the creature quickly enough that it doesn't get a chance to do much damage, or their hp and healing magic are massively depleted once the fight is over. Things get more interesting if you give the monster some defenses vs. magic, though.
Honestly, rend is second to pounce and naturally invisible enemies in my book. The two combine to make Hellcats one of my favorite monsters, as a pair of them can keep pouncing on the same victim on alternate turns. Invisible stalkers are a close second in the "hellish invisible monsters" category, especially when they float above characters and use their reach to seem to be attacking from the side-- although I've got to say that flying Hellcats are even better.
Hrm. What's else on the list? Elder Xorn, Bulette, and any other high damage burrowing monsters I've forgotten. Remorhaz (not nearly as horrifically deadly as they were in 1E or 2E!). Any low CR and high HD and damage monster with the Half-fiend template, though you have to watch out for that 1/day blasphemy, which can be a little unfair.
Still, the 15d6 horrid wilting you can get out of a half-fiend elder xorn just makes me smile...
Energy drain is definetly nasty, especially if you have naughty PC's who are playing a monster class (ie.Taking levels in a class out of the Savage species) If you ever wanted to see a mind flayer run for it's life, Throw down a vampire spawn in it's face. Also many types of incoporeal undead become twice as mean if you give them the Empowered Ability damage feat out of the libris mortis. MUUUUHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Does that make me a bad person?
Have to agree with Alec, invisible monsters are the one thing I can guarantee will worry my players, in a recent run of RTEE I had invisible stalkers sent out of the Crater Ridge Mines after the PCs when they left, they were not happy, they were being stalked in a big town at night whilst they tried to sleep.
Also of course, anything that can't be seen can be used to create a scary atmosphere adding to the paranoia of the session. Anything Ravenloftish also comes up trumps here, patriarch vampires have an air of dread about them that brings my players out in sweats, but then anything in Ravenlot is very bad...
The most worried I've ever seen a group of players outside a Call of Cthulhu adventure was during the adventure Wind Chill by Kevin Carter in dungeon 77, which introduced a Windigo to a party caught out in the snow, another of your invisible horrors Alec!
Incorporeal creatures with the spring attack feat can be pretty dangerous, as they step out of a wall, hit somebody (often causeing energy or ability drain) and then return to the wall where they can't be hit back.
Yes, Rend is the secret killer. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
For killing PC’s, here’s what I recommend: Slap the Arachnoid template (from the Realms sourcebook Underdark) on a Grey Render and a Roper, ala City of the Spider Queen. Tee hee!
That way, you have a six-clawed super render (to the tune of an extra 3d8+14 per rend), with a climb speed that lets it attack from above and is able to poison the characters that it bites! With a Fort DC of 32, I’d wager only a Fighter could shrug off the strength damage from the poison.
Then mix in an Arachnoid Roper. Thanks to the template it gets 10(!) strand attacks and can use its climb speed to position itself above character’s heads to gain surprise ...all in addition to its regular ability to inflict Strength damage.
And if your players regularly steal your food from the Paizo Fridge, you could put the encounter in a webbed over area to further inhibit their character’s ability to esca...err, I mean to move and to see their attackers.
Anyway, full 3.5 write-ups for both the above creatures can be found on page 1 of the City of the Spider Queen Revisited: Creatures and NPCs Revised to 3.5 Standards thread on the FR General Board (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=255217&page=1).
J. Grenemyer
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Rend is a solid PC instant-retirement device, but the thing that has killed more PCs in my games are NPC barbarians.
Take a nice orc, half-org, ogre, orog, troll, grimlock, or any other race that gets a nice strength bonus (natural armor is just icing), 5-10 levels of barbarian (enough to match the PCs EL), spice with a two-handed weapon, and send him in! Raging barbarians of any level hand out great amounts of damage, and can take amazing amounts of punishment. And the obvious feats of cleave, power attack, etc. just make it unpleasant.
Although, my favorite bad guy was a drow illusionist. He'd create an silent image of himself appearing about 100 feet away, seeming to cast silence, then seeming to cast invisibility, then vanishing, and watch the party waste all their spells and magic items trying to find the invisible illusionist in their midst...
And the Red Render did in two pc goons ... I have to agree with ya, James!
The rend special attack is the best way to kill a PC, I've decided.
Funny you should mention rend. Our level 12 Psionices just got murdered by it. To add insult to injury it was a coup de grace attack. So rend + claws of the beast + automatic critical on every hit. Thats a lot of d6. I stopped rolling when he hit -20.
Rend is a monster. Throw in Claws of the Beast and the damage is unbelievable Stack that with "unkillable" monster like a troll and you are talking serious player-killer.
I know from personal experience. I wasn't trying to min-max but I played a troll warrior to about level 8 in a campaign two years back. DM gave me the claws as some party loot. I think he regretted that decision. The troll was a potent melee character. So much so that I use my old character as muscle NPC in my current campaign. And since two of my players were fellow players with the troll they tend to be scared witless whenever they encounter a troll - especially one with green plate mail and metal claws.
The other thing I have found they has killed a lot of players are gaze attacks - Bodak, Medusa whatever.
There is nothing better than seeing players fear a creature because of its combat prowess. the best one I've found for this so far has been the Girallon. As someone mentioned, their four attacks almost always leads to at least one rend. Add their reach and it's a party wrecking machine.
Watching my players move their characters into combat with a Girallon is priceless, and the comment "I don't have to out the monster. I just have to out run you." often becomes the name of the game. As a CR5 monster, Girallons are fun as mega foes for second level parties, and continue to be fun for up to 8th+ level parties...especially when they swarm...
ASEO out
Slightly off topic (sorry).
ASEO on another thread someone mentioned you had a Maure Castle game log somewhere. Can I get a link? Thanks.
Slightly off topic (sorry).
ASEO on another thread someone mentioned you had a Maure Castle game log somewhere. Can I get a link? Thanks.
Not me. I do keep write-ups from the games I've DMed over the last 5 years or so, but I've not yet had the chance to run Maure Castle. Although if I did, I'd probably run the party through its percurser first.
ASEO out
What's hampered us the most in our present adventure is monsters with PC classes AND stout armor, combined with swallow whole in a small room. Fighting a tendriculous on a 40' by 15' ledge overlooking a lake is just nasty nasty stuff. Put some ogres at the top of the cliff in splint mail with two handed morning starts and it's tough going.
I don't think anything I've recently read has caused me to recoil in horror like an encounter from Q1 - Demonweb Pits. (I know I'm dating myself.) As I recall, although I was a player and have never DMed that module, there was a room with like 20 trolls or something. No particular reason, just 20 trolls hanging out in a room. The PC who opened the door got dragged into the room by a few trolls, while another one slammed the door shut and trapped the rest of the group outside standing on the pathway that was suspended over the Abyss (literally).
That was an almost certain PC killer, especially if the rest of your group decided to beef themselves up with some magical protection before somehow getting the door open and charging in. You find out who your friends are quick in situations like that. Anyone else remember this particular encounter or did our DM throw it in for fun?
So I guess my answer would be - stick a PC alone in a room surrounded by 20 trolls.
P.S.- It wasn't my character who got dragged into the room. It was the paladin. His remains were not recovered and the player never forgave us for our lack of hustle in the rescue attempt.
Rend has claimed the life of at least one PC in the campaign I play in. However, the true secret killer of our groups is the enemy cleric. They have so many save or die/save or debilitate spells at their disposal, and they often have a choice of Will or Fortitude "save or die spells", so they can drop the fighters with the Will spells and the casters with the Fort spells. Plus, unlike those frail, unarmored arcane casters, they often sport more armor than the party fighters.
Anyone else remember this particular encounter or did our DM throw it in for fun?
I do remember. It was part of the module. It also had a room filled with 20+ ogres. Another with 40 bugbears or some such and another with a mirror of opposition.
Demonweb = death trap.
For future reference, and as a slight side-step, would DMs like to see the sort of rooms mentioned by PBEM DM in Demonweb turn up in adventures occasionally? I've noticed a few threads where places like this are mentioned with fondness, I think James mentioned something about the room with the lich in D1 a while back, again no real reason for it to be there as I recall, but what a surprise!
I'm a sucker for nostalgia, but I think that a few of the recent discussions have summed up my opinion on the matter of reworking old material.
If the encounters can be re-imagined to fit into the modern context of D+D, while retaining some of their old flavor, then I'm all for it. Unfortunately, given the present state of affairs in Dungeon magazine, the troll room would have about a page of background history and motivation for the trolls (naming them individually), supplemented by 5 pages of statistical text. Of course, they'd have to be half-fiend trolls with levels in barbarian, led by a troll-succubus-shadow dancer weilding a spiked chain. Yeah!
No dig on Dungeon, really. I like color text, and it's better to have all the stats and not need them than to need them and not have them, but it really has gone a bit too far when your standard text box informs you that the trolls you're fighting have 8 ranks in swim and the endurance feat.
P.S.- I've noticed that modern dungeons no longer have lairs with hordes of female humanoids and their children. I seem to remember continuously running into the situation where we would come upon a room with 15 troglodyte women and their 30 children who just wanted to be left alone. We never knew what to do in these situations, and tended to leave them alone to produce the next generation of wicked demon worshipping baddies. Was this a conscious effort on module designers part for this reason? Some other reason? Am I imagining things?
P.S.- I've noticed that modern dungeons no longer have lairs with hordes of female humanoids and their children. I seem to remember continuously running into the situation where we would come upon a room with 15 troglodyte women and their 30 children who just wanted to be left alone. We never knew what to do in these situations, and tended to leave them alone to produce the next generation of wicked demon worshipping baddies. Was this a conscious effort on module designers part for this reason? Some other reason? Am I imagining things?
I've noticed that too... the last adventure I can remember including these non-combatants in it was The Sunless Citadel... though I've missed a lot of the 3.0 and 3.5 adventures out there, so there may have been some since then.
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Creative Director
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If I had to guess... one of the main reasons for this is that in the 3rd edition rules there's no real difference between genders of a race, ability-wise. A male orc is equally able to crush in your skull with a club as a female orc is, and as a result, orc moms are just as likely to rise in the defense of a dungeon, and so aren't listed as "non-combatants."
Another reason is, of course, that Dungeon simply hasn't run any adventures lately about a classic humanoid lair. The closest we've come is probably "Unfamiliar Ground" in issue #119, and since the goblin tribe in that particular adventure's relativelly new they don't have a room full of baby goblins.
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One of our group's early moments playing our first 3e edition game of D&D was in the Sunless Citadel - and the wizard used charm person to get a goblin child to open potentially trapped chests, while the other players looked on in horror... obviously it was a holdover of behaviour from high school.
1e adventures had great ways of getting around the fact that characters over 10th level were nigh invulnerable. Some were very ingenious.
If I had to guess... one of the main reasons for this is that in the 3rd edition rules there's no real difference between genders of a race, ability-wise. A male orc is equally able to crush in your skull with a club as a female orc is, and as a result, orc moms are just as likely to rise in the defense of a dungeon, and so aren't listed as "non-combatants."
That doesn't ring true to me... I'll have to check my books when I get home, but I could swear that the monster manual talks about the noncombatant members of various humanoid tribes when it talks about groupings of creatures.... though maybe this was a 3e thing that didn't make it to 3.5e
And Sunless Citadel, which was 3e, did have the non combatants in it... though, again, it's the most recent module I can remember seeing humanoid non-coms for monster races.
I knew it... it doesn't expressly identify women and children as non-coms, but there is a section (under organization) on non-combatants: "Many groups also have a number of noncombatants, expressed as a percentage of the fighting population. Noncombatants can include young, the infirm, slaves, or other individuals who are not inclined to fight." (Monster Manual, pg 7).
So the lack of non-coms actually appearing in adventures is probably just a change in style by the current writers. I always felt the non-coms provided some interesting moral dilemas, but that is being covered in another thread, so I'll let it be for now.
Huge creatures with Grapple - they're the biggest PC killers around.
I mentioned something like this when I was scaling up "Torrents of Dread"...
Cheers,
Merric
I'm kinda new to the 3.x D&D ruleset, but I'm learning on the fly.
In other words, my Barbarian won't attempt to Charge the next Troll he sees. That almost ended very, very, very badly. You're right, rend is the suck.
I'm also learning as a DM, as are my players. The last adventure, a 3rd level Monk chased after the 5th level Barbarian Orc leader. Catching him was the beginning of his worries....
I love the levels you can give critters in 3.x. Who says Goblins can't be 12th level?
Telas
So unexpected large groups of invisible rending beasts would be truly, truly horrific...an interesting thought for any future submissions.
So unexpected large groups of invisible rending beasts would be truly, truly horrific...an interesting thought for any future submissions.
Richard... the point is for it to be fun, with the POTENTIAL for TPK... not a guarantee!!!!
- Ashavan
So unexpected large groups of invisible rending beasts would be truly, truly horrific...an interesting thought for any future submissions.Richard... the point is for it to be fun, with the POTENTIAL for TPK... not a guarantee!!!!
No, no, I think the man's got a point.
I mean, Girallons are kinda weak by the time you hit 9th or 10th level or so, right? So an encounter with a 3-4 girallons led by an ogre mage or bone devil wouldn't be that bad... would it?
*chuckle* Flying invisible Girallons. I love D&D.
*chuckle* Flying invisible Girallons. I love D&D.
What about a squardron of flying monks-on-rustmonsters? That should scare about anyone.
Now see what you've done James! - I take your point Koldoon, this was why I loved descent, vault of the drow being in my opinion the best potential menace to be had in any adventure. I hope you'll enjoy that feeling in The Styes when it comes out next month as I've tried to give it a lot of lurking menace, although I cant guarantee any flying monk rust monsters! (although it is an idea - ride of the valkyrie playing in the background, "the red terror of ukly village" where a group of wizards unleash - hmmm)
James, expect a submission with a room of modified girallons coming your way...
Most monsters are made with the "laser beams and glass jaws" philosophy where the monster has an attack thats too strong for its level and a weakness thats too weak for its level.
But the problem is that Rend is a sneaky laser beam. Its not like a Pixie's "arrow and spells grab-bag thats a lot like an encounter worth of 12th level wizard" laser beam. We know that its strong. (A Pixie also has a great glass jaw(HP=3) which even a novice player can see.)
Rend is usually slapped onto a combat monster with few obvious weaknesses. I mean, most people are unaware that a Troll's weakness is not fire. A troll's weakness is "not letting it get a Full Attack and Rend damage." Most people don't know that with teamwork and a little cooperative character building, you can do 6 attacks for every 1 troll attack vs the normal battle where everyone Full Attacks and has a 2-1 ratio per round for the battle(three fighter-guys with an attack and an iterative attack vs the troll's 2 primary and one secondary).
I mean, by the time you get Rend damage applied to you and you remember that its really bad, the monster probably critted too, meaning that this round it got a KILLER COMBO! and a PC is dead.
ANYway... what do all you DMs out there think? Is rend the secret killer of D&D?
So I just ran the fight against four Girallons in the Banewarrens, and... wow. Just wow. You know all that stuff I said about pounce and stuff being better than rend?
I take it all back.
4 attacks at +12 with rend is the worst thing ever. ;)
The NPC fighter-type was dropped to -33 hp and had his head torn off. The Warforged fighter was dropped to -7 hp. The Artificer was at -3 hp, the Cleric had to cast divine power and fight in the frontlines, the Rogue was at 6 hp, and the Warforged's Cohort saved the party. It would definitely have been a TPK if I'd run the Girallons as intelligent opponents.
I think I have a new favorite monster. And at CR 6, no less. It warms my bloodthirsty little heart.
As a DM I have to say that if your DM is using powerful monster feats in a low to mid level stages of the campaign he's making a mistake. The stats as they are where created to give the player a challenge at their curent level. These additional power feats for monster where designed for DM's to employ as their there players characters get into the higher levels and creating challenging encounters for them gets more difficult with out being stagnate. Once a group reaches level 17 fighting dragons and extra large undead all the time gets boring, but coming up against a grillion (which they encountered way back at level 5) and not expecting it to be much of problem, they in for a supprize when it rips aparts one of their teammates, thus adding supprize and interest by being able to mix up the creatures which can do some real damage to the party. Spicy!
Actually, the most brutual monster I have ever fixed up was a Vampiric Shadow Dragon with the Clinging Breath feat, Quicken Breath feat, the Rapid Strike feat, and the Improved Rapid Strike feat. Normal vampires can only energy drain a pc once per round. A vampiric dragon drains a pc per every successful claw attack! Round One: quicken breath from old wyrm shadow dragon (if you fail your save, lose 8 levels, or 4 on a successful save), followed by 4-6 claw attacks from it (lose another 4-6 levels), and a bite. That's a minimum of 8 levels to a maximum of 14 levels. Round Two: Claw the pcs until they're meat or grapple with them and blood drain them. Nearly killed the entire party with that. After the first round, they were already retreating. :)
Rend is okay.
But to really put the hurt on, you need Improved Grab. Grapple 'em!
It works best if there are multiple grapplers. Take down the meat sheild, then get to the spell casters. Mmmmm, spell casters; yummy! Clerics are especically easy. Wizards often have that pesky DD or Teleport memorized.
Rend and grappling are also equally capable of TPKs. However, at higher levels, pcs can find themselves immune to grappling from opponents with a simple application of the *freedom of movement* spell or with a *ring of freedom of movement*. In both cases, grappling is useless...unless of course, the one doing the grappling is none other than a golem. If you read carefully, the golem's immunity to magic is not limited to magical attacks and effects. It applies to all forms of magic that allow SR, even (if read literally) if the SR check generally applies to the target of the spell or effect in question.
Thus, at higher levels, nothing beats a big golem in terms of being able to grapple pcs who would normally be immune to such circumstances thanks to the spell or item mentioned above. The limiting factor here is that a golem can only grapple a single creature (with all the appropriate modifiers).
And yes, almost of the games I run involve mid- to high-level campaigns. Which explains why I know a few dirty tricks. ;)
I agree with opposing Clerics... they can really mess you up.
The only TPK I had in an adventure came from a silly Fiendish Grell. I know it isn't as sexy as a bloody rending, but for a CR 4 monster, it's pretty wicked. . .
It's immune to electricity, resistant to ice and fire, has a damage reduction of 5/magic. Plus, it has a ton of attacks per round... all with the potential to grapple and apply paralysis.
Add in it's ability to fly, plus all it's stealthy skills... it's a pretty tough beastie. i don't think you can find a harder CR 4 monster for lower level parties... what do you think?
Someone had mentioned Ropers in a prior reply and I have to say that a lone adventurer facing one of those creatures is doomed more often then not. My 7th level dwarven cleric almost became Roper food after he was wrapped five times with the tentacles and then weakened to a 0 in his strength. Thankfully the rest of the party were able to chop into this creature and kill him before it could do more damage to my character. The Roper's spell resistance didn't make it any easier to damage. A very nasty foe indeed.
James, I personally like the Chwidencha from Fiend Folio. The CR is higher, but man what a killing machine! You've got 4 leg rakes that deal an average of 38 points damage if all of them hit and an extra average of 19 if it succeeds in grappling a PC thanks to Improved Grab. And, hey, it has a burrow speed so it can carry PCs off to be slowly consumed if the terrain is earthy. OH, and good luck trying to chase it since it leaves behind no tunnel that other creatures can use.
So, to recap... If a Chwidencha hits with all attacks and grapples a PC, that's an average of 57 points damage. And next round it burrows away to consume your PC over the next several hours. Or maybe it comes back for seconds...
I'd have to say that the right trap in the right place has proven a more effective PC retirer than anything, in my experience. I've played since the early '80s, and nothing scared us more than an upper level Gygax-written module. Though I just play 3.5 now, I still read through that old stuff for ideas. The man was truly devious.
Of course, part of the key was in making the trap both seductive and destructive. The traps in Tomb Of Horrors, for example, were largely designed to kill munchkins. Other modules had traps designed to be over-thought, where escape was ridiculously simple in reality, but the skittish PCs were likely to believe it just COULDN'T be that easy.
So in summation, right trap, right place, right time.
- Rob
Rend my friend, Rend.
Dire Tiger. 120 Hit Points. 3 Attacks (even when charging thanks to pounce), two of them with a +20 to hit. Add Rend to the equation and what do you get?
CR 8?!
Thanks for including these kitties as a resident at Velikar's Keep GregV; my character will thank you for it after his stay at the Istivin Intensive Care Unit!
Rend my friend, Rend.
Dire Tiger. 120 Hit Points. 3 Attacks (even when charging thanks to pounce), two of them with a +20 to hit. Add Rend to the equation and what do you get?
CR 8?!
Aye, Rend is quite the nasty little surprise (assuming they hit, which is a fairly good chance of happening), but imagine a girallon taking feats like Improved Trip? Trip the foes first before clawing and rending them to the sweet hereafter. Just not a pretty picture for the pcs. Or the Jump Attack feat...just too many feats out there that can combine nicely with special abilities to make them far more fearsome than they were intended to be in the first place.
But as demostrated by the Knights of the Dinner Table, even a lonesome squirrel can prove to be the bane of a party of lost and hungry pcs. Did I ever enjoyed reading that particular strip. That particular squirrel was "the cujo of rodents" as Bob so eloquently put it. :)
But as demostrated by the Knights of the Dinner Table, even a lonesome squirrel can prove to be the bane of a party of lost and hungry pcs. Did I ever enjoyed reading that particular strip. That particular squirrel was "the cujo of rodents" as Bob so eloquently put it. :)
I know CB. I've seen the errata on them. ;)
GGG
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What other special attacks have you seen kill of PCs with suprising efficiency and regularity?
Hi there,
what comes next, should be considered insights of a relative dm newbie. So be lenient with me if I should happen to state the obvious without delving into min-maxing of "advanced" bestiary. ;-)
I dm a 4th level party who is feeling somewhat averse towards magic which makes the party's druid the only magic user. This makes choosing encounters/ adventures by challenge rating a challenge of its own. John D. Rateliff's wonderful adventure "Secret of the Stone Circle" (Adv. for 7th lvl. players) looked like a good choice.
The opening encounter with the incorporal ghostly rider already scarred the wits out of my players: when did it happen the last time that they were unable to stop an adversary from harming innocents? After one more "boring" day (-> no real fights for the party) the party's elven fighter and the ranger decided to sneak out of the village and to do some scouting of their own.
A few random encounters later they encountered the "Hobjahs" (german translation?) - or rather: the "Hobjahs" encountered them, Hobjahs being small devious externars with a challenge rating of 3 and some nasty surprises:
damage reduction 10/ wood (!!!)
damage: 1d4 (bite) + 1d3 (claw) + poison damage by bite
special abilities: aura of fright and improved grabbing.
The circumstances: two players alone in the woods which had been unnaturally empty and devoid of any life before the Hobjahs started silently shooing from tree to tree, finally starting to tease the two unfortunate ones by crying "look there, look there".
The two unfortunate players barely survived the first two rounds. Their only successful attacks were those, when they hurled themselves and the attached grabbing Hobjahs against trees. They were fortunate enough that their legs were faster than those of the Hobjahs after the aura of fright took effect... the ranger's animal companion was less fortunate. After reaching their co-players they solemnly promised to never again do scouting of their own... ;-)
So to abbreviate my ramblings at least somewhat:
confronting a party devoid of magic with unnatural adversaries is by far the deadliest kind of encounter I witnessed so far.
And stating the obvious: parties heavy on clerics, wizards etc. are prone to physically challenging high hp monsters, while parties like mine (no magic, no experience!) should spend a second thought on any adversary which requires the use of magic, special weaponry etc.
Greetings from Cologne, Germany
Guenther