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First off, much thanks to Xaaon of Xen'Drik, hogarth, and James Martin for participating.
Basics:
PCs included 5 15th level PCs, Bartimus the cleric, Grumble the fighter, Strangler the druid, Sleepy the monk, and Elmora the fighter/conjurer/eldtrich knight.
Opponents were standard SRD Horned Devil and two Barbed Devils.
Brief Summary
The first two rounds were buffing rounds and in that time, 3 huge air elementals and 2 bralani were added to the PC's roster, and the druid was in the form of a huge air elemental.
Round 3:
Monk moved in to attack and was hit with Horned Devil's spiked chain and was stunned into inaction for several rounds.
Horned devil and 1 barbed devil attacked the monk while he was stunned.
Cleric channeled positive energy vs outsiders.
Fighter failed save vs fear when approaching horned devil and was effectively out of combat for this round. Druid missed his attack.
Elementals were unable to enter the area around devils due to magic circle vs good. There was some contention over this due to the discrepancies between protection vs good/protection vs evil spells. Conjurer cast greater invisibility and ordered the bralanis to attack.
Bralanis need a 20 to hit, which one attack in four does.
Second barbed devil cast Unholy Blight with minor effect.
Round 4:
One barbed devil kept trying to attack monk but had no luck getting past AC, even when stunned.
Horned Devil attacked druid, one hit with minor damage.
Cleric cast Chaos Hammer with some minor success, moved to help the monk and provoked AoO from Horned Devil. He also failed to save vs stun and was stunned for a couple rounds as well.
Conjurer casts greater heroism on fighter to remove fear effect, allowing the fighter to get back into the fight.
Fighter moved in and got off one successful attack.
Bralani's attacks had one more natural 20 for one more hit.
Druid hits the horned devil with one attack, minor damage.
Round 5:
Cleric and monk are both stunned.
Barbed devil moves to attack the stunned priest instead of the monk and does some solid damage.
Horned devil does some relatively minor damage against the druid.
Druid, Conjurer and bralani attack and all miss.
Fighte full attacks and hits with a critical - lots of damage brings horned devil down to about 1/3 hit points.
Round 6:
Elementals can finally move to attack the barbed devil that moved out of the magic circle to attack the priest. One provokes an AoO from horned devil and gets stunned. Other air elemental does no damage.
Monk and Priest are still stunned and cannot act.
A barbed devil attacks the druid and misses.
Horned devil changes targets to the very powerful fighter. His one hit actually missed due to 50% displacement from a potion.
Conjurer casts haste on party.
Bralani's move and cast healing on priest.
Druid casts heal on monk.
Monk immediately attacks and misses all attacks on horned devil.
Fighter full attacks the horned devil, hitting several times with one more critical and easily kills the horned devil.
Round 7:
Two elementals attack a barbed devil and do some moderate damage.
Barbed devil fails to hit druid.
Cleric is no longer stunned, but is grappled. He channels vs outsiders again and does some moderate damage.
Barbed devil on cleric does more impaling damage.
Conjurer and bralani full attack one of the barbed devils and all miss.
Druid full attacks a barbed devil and knocks it unconscious.
Fighter full attacks the other horned devil and brings it to negative.
Quick Thoughts
Most of the PCs were very ineffective vs the Horned Devil. The fighter was the only one with a reasonable chance of hitting him and the horned devil was no match for him. The monk didn't stand up well as a front line combat type. The cleric was effective when not stunned. The conjurer was only really effective in a supporting role. The druid was mostly effective in both, combat and support.
Buffs were pretty critical. Enlarge person, divine favor, bears endurance, magic vestment, barkskin, and haste were common.
Clarification is needed for some things like Protection from Evil/Good.
I have a technical question about fear affecting PCs that attack with reach. For instance, the Horned Devil has a fear aura of 5'. If a PC with 10 reach keeps 5' away from the devil and attacks with a shield bash, does the fear effect still affect the PC since he had to put some body part into the 5' space (an arm in the case of shield bash). If it were a weapon with reach, then the fear effect, in my mind at least, does not apply. But if an arm, leg, tentacle, slam, etc. does enter the space, it seems reasonable to me that the fear effect does take effect. I couldn't find a rule on this - any help is appreciated.
Opinions, comments, etc., are of course welcome.
Fergie here.
Thanks for taking the time to post this. I find that the battles with outsiders really stress test the system well.
How do you feel the party did based on the EL? Did they use a quarter of their resources?
I had always interpreted the rules strictly when it comes to space and reach. You occupy the 5' cube, (or 10x10 cube with enlarge) regardless of weapons or limbs leaving that area.
Remember that in order for Pro Evil/Good to hedge out outsiders, Spell Resistance applies.
Did the devils buff up before the combat? Did the PCs have free rounds to cast buffs?
As for the Eldritch Knight, my experience playing one was as you discribe - good for minor fighting, but lacking when things get really tough.
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Fergie here.
Thanks for taking the time to post this. I find that the battles with outsiders really stress test the system well.
How do you feel the party did based on the EL? Did they use a quarter of their resources?
I had always interpreted the rules strictly when it comes to space and reach. You occupy the 5' cube, (or 10x10 cube with enlarge) regardless of weapons or limbs leaving that area.
Remember that in order for Pro Evil/Good to hedge out outsiders, Spell Resistance applies.
Did the devils buff up before the combat? Did the PCs have free rounds to cast buffs?
As for the Eldritch Knight, my experience playing one was as you discribe - good for minor fighting, but lacking when things get really tough.
Thanks for the questions! I'm sure the players have input as well.
The party did fairly well vs the CR of 16. We were originally set up with a rogue as well, which would have been an even challenge but the rogue dropped out making the challenge a little tougher for them. As far as resources go, most were used on buffs. Those with consummables used most of those up.
Thanks for the space clarification - I've been fuzzy on that for a while now. In the playtest, I was assuming that a charge/shield slam would put the PC within the horned devil's aura, but technically, I think I was wrong on that.
The magic circle was against good and cast by the horned devil for his only buff. They really didn't have anything else useful during buff rounds. That is what hedged out the summoned elementals. Using a strict reading of the space rules, I think they should have been able to use a slam attack, but not do anything that would put them into the same space as the caster.
The PCs did use a lot of buffs. Mostly potions (displacement, fly, barkskin), haste spells, mass enlarge person, mass bear's endurance, etc.)