I want to share my party experience of their yesterday trip to the grimlock caves as it shows how terrain advantage could outclass even a highpowered PC party ;-)
It was really a classic beat-up-the-party match where they maneauvered themsleves into a situation that was much more dangerous than designed.
The party features 6 4th level PCs (samurai, druid, wizard, psion, cleric and rogue/bard) and I did not change any of the stats given in the adventure (which - you remember - is made for 4 3rd level PCs).
Lets start after defeating the kennel master and his krenshas. The party investigates the drop-off and realized that there is a ledge on the far side of the cavern with two archers scouting. However, they could not find a way to cross the gap so they decide to go down to the cavern floor and use the tunnel there after they scare off the two grimlocks with a well placed flaming sphere.
Down they noticed the choker (good listen check) but are unable to get hold of him so they decide to ignore him for know. Both chokers decide not to headlessly attack a 6-people group.
The group then scouts the second cavern and noticed the rope-bridge. Because of their light disadvantage they are unable to figure out what is on both sides of the bridge. They managed to shoot a rope over the bridge, fastened it somehow to have something to climb up. It proves very difficult to climb up, manage to move from rope to rope-bridge and to traverse the bridge to the ledge (Balance) - exspecially for heavy armored PCs.
The first to take that route was the druid (a goreburute shifter who is not helpless in close combat). He spots two grimlocks on the ledge but not the barbarian and decided to attack. Unfortunatly he does not stand a round against 3 of them and went to -2 hitpoints.
The samurai was next but was unable to get foot on the bridge failing climb and blanace checks miserably as he got under fire from the two grimlock archers who positioned themselves on the other side of the bridge. This sends him down for some falling damage. Nobody else was able to help as they could not see to the bridge and could not see the grimlocks either. Meanwhile the grimlock pushes the unconcious druid over the ledge (I am a very nasty DM sometimes but like to make the PCs really hate me or my mosnters :-)) which brought him to minus 9 through falling damage.
The next who tries was the rogue/bard plus the restored druid. The restored samurai following close. The rogue manages to get past the barbarian to flank him together with the druid. Druid plus samurai were struggeling with one remaining grimlock plus the barbarian to get off the bridge and onto the ledge. The rogues falls prone after an attack from the barabarian. The archers were peppering the group with arrows for another round until they got distracted through a summon swarm from the druid.
Nobody down at the cavern floor remembers the chokers... The first choker gets very close to the cleric. The cleric, heavy crossbow at hand, readies his action to find something to shoot at. She does a great listen check and realised the choker just 3 ft behind her. Her crossbow nails the choker to the cavern wall. After defeating the choker noboday gave a thought on that there maybe another one...
Meanwhile the samurai kills the barbarian with his double-bladed scimitar with two very lucky strikes - both critical.
The wizard was grappled by the second choker but the aberration gots killed by a heavy augmented mind thrust from the psion.
When the rest of the party manages to get onto the ledge, the two archers are still alive and so the group now is trapped between the archers and the rest of the grimlock staff in the deeper caverns, most of them barely wounded, most spells wasted, with no chance to recover. Lets see how they will manage that next week...
Actually after the show we discussed what the best way to avoid being trapped by terrain disadvantage would be as it seems to be impossible to deal with the archers from the kennel-master hideout.
Actually after the show we discussed what the best way to avoid being trapped by terrain disadvantage would be as it seems to be impossible to deal with the archers from the kennel-master hideout.
Darkvision + Wand of Magic Missile should do the trick ;)
My party found themselves in a similar pickle. The barbarian made his way to the other end of the cave (by the rope bridge) and tried to flank the archers only to get stopped cold by the Grimlock barbarian. The wound up taking down the archers with a Wand of Magic Missiles and a Spiritual Weapon. This touched off an interesting debate on whether or not a Grimlock would realize that a Spiritual Weapon was even there.
My party made excellent use of the "Silence" spell which effectively blinded the Grimlocks and made the encounters in this area fairly easy.
Spoilers
Tactical lessons learned--don't leave known enemies behind you who can outflank you and cut off your retreat, and don't put yourself in a position where you have to fight on two or three fronts at once!
My party very foolishly split themselves up--cleric/ranger and wizard stayed in the kennel to occupy the ledge archers with missile fire while the paladin and the bard explored the tunnel to the choker cave to look for a way to catch the archers from behind. The latter two had a surprisingly tough time with the chokers, and when they finally dispatched them, the barbarian jumped down and chewed through them before they had a chance to cure up. They were both on the floor bleeding to death before they had a chance to do more than scream for help.
The only thing that saved their heinies was that the cleric/ranger was starting to get worried because he hadn't heard from them for some time. So the wizard webbed the two archers and they climbed down, just in time to confront the still-raging barbarian. They managed to take her down, but only just, and fortunately the paladin got lucky and stabilized by himself, or he would have bled to death before first aid arrived.
The bard managed to kill one of the grimlocks at the far end of the rope bridge with his crossbow after scaling a rope they hooked over the bridge--and when the other two grimlocks saw the cleric/ranger shimmy up after him, they fled to warn the rest of the tribe.
At this point, the party started using their heads. The archers had escaped from the web, but were stuck on the ledge because the web blocked access to the climbing spikes. So the bard climbed up just below the ledge and torched the webs, then cast silence, negating their blindsight by taking out sight and smell (another use for smoke!). He then rolled up onto the ledge and dispatched both of them handily.
There were a couple of close calls in the fight with the rest of the tribe, but the party did a better job with mutual support after their first near disaster!