Hi guys
I have some questions about the rescue encounter in BoE
First:
Are the PCs supposed to be level 2 when they face this (as the book mentions being level 2 both on sewer exit and when fighting the Bastards themselves)
Second:
Where do the CR 4 and CR 7 values come from?
As written a level 1 cleric NPC and 6 level 1 warriors (with lower stats) - or 10 if no does not strike me as a "Hard" / "Epic" encounter for even relatively prepared PCs (especially if - as is likley, it is there only main encounter that day)
Are there some unseen modifiers in there?
Eg. Is the terrain harder than I give credit for?
Is the CR considered boosted by the giant crossbow
Or is the "notional" intention of not killing hellknights factored (don't see that happening in any game I run to be honest)
Has anyone adjusted this encounter significantly
I'm immediately thinking of giving the cleric at least one more level (to bring him in line with PCs)
Would appreciate a little more clarity on this
1: My group became level 2 after completing the rescue.
2: When combining the XP values for the Signifer and 6 armigers, you get 1010 XP.
Since a CR 4 encounter is 1200 XP, while a CR 3 encounter is 800 XP, this is pretty much right in the middle of those two.
In any case, since you always award XP by the values of each defeated monster/NPC, it doesn't matter what the listed XP-value for the complete encounter is. That only makes a difference when determining if the PCs would likely be able to defeat it easily or if they would expend a large amount of their resources to do so.