I said I was sorry. I didn't realize how powerful fire storm was. i just set up a coven of hags that seemed to be the right level of CR then when the fight started used the blood hags ability give the coven fire storm. I thought that having 6 undead trolls that the party knew about ahead of time would help them out and it did! They took them over with out much fuss. Every fight before this has been ended by the enemy being blinded almost immediately so I wanted to do a coven so a single save or suck couldn't beat it.
Every time I've fought a coven as a player I took them down easy and I was only level 3 then. At least when you come back you will likely have protection from fire up.
There was warning that it was coven of hags with blood hag. How else do you think they were spamming nightmares at you?
The lich is not showing up this the later. I wanted the to foreshadow him a bit. The marut seemed like a good way to do that since a lich as old as him should have a marut after him. The green dragon was just so I could have someone unpleasant that you have to negotiate with and you have come up with some fairly good plans for dealing with her.
There is more than one creature that can send nightmares. Unless they made a knowledge check they really had no way to know.
The right CR? The hag alone was enough to be a boss fight. I don't know how you were taking on a CR 10'ish encounter with a level 3 party, but it is not normal.
PS: I am not scolding you. I am just saying that I think your experiences are not the norm for most people. --->Text does not always come across well.
They are 5th level. Now 6th.
They are 5th level. Now 6th.I said I was sorry. I didn't realize how powerful fire storm was. i just set up a coven of hags that seemed to be the right level of CR then when the fight started used the blood hags ability give the coven fire storm. I thought that having 6 undead trolls that the party knew about ahead of time would help them out and it did! They took them over with out much fuss. Every fight before this has been ended by the enemy being blinded almost immediately so I wanted to do a coven so a single save or suck couldn't beat it.
Every time I've fought a coven as a player I took them down easy and I was only level 3 then. At least when you come back you will likely have protection from fire up.
There was warning that it was coven of hags with blood hag. How else do you think they were spamming nightmares at you?
The lich is not showing up this the later. I wanted the to foreshadow him a bit. The marut seemed like a good way to do that since a lich as old as him should have a marut after him. The green dragon was just so I could have someone unpleasant that you have to negotiate with and you have come up with some fairly good plans for dealing with her.
There is more than one creature that can send nightmares. Unless they made a knowledge check they really had no way to know.
The right CR? The hag alone was enough to be a boss fight. I don't know how you were taking on a CR 10'ish encounter with a level 3 party, but it is not normal.
PS: I am not scolding you. I am just saying that I think your experiences are not the norm for most people. --->Text does not always come across well.
I was talking about when you said you were taking on covens with a level 3 character, and CR 10 is still abnormal for a level 5 party.
there must be at least 1 12th level caster to create such thingsWhen meeting an undead creature or golem, I don't normally work out the power level of whoever could have created such a thing and assume that they're about to attack me too. Should I?
I would say both yes and no. It kind of depends on what, exactly, you are facing and where. At one end of the spectrum, you have your basic wandering skeleton. Typically, I would not anticipate having to worry about whatever animated said skeleton (though again, context will be key). On the other end of the spectrum, you have the party that is traveling through the wilderness and comes across a glade with a tall tower in the middle of it. At the gate to the tower, the party encounters a powerful golem. In that situation, I would say its fair to argue that you should expect something pretty powerful inside the tower.
Now, where it gets shady is when, at the gate, ALL of the tower's minions as well as the powerful lich/wizard/whatever that created said golem and minions, join in on the fight at the gate at the same time.
So, putting that in perspective, and referencing my earlier post about the GM throwing 2 level 15 casters at our level 9 party, we had earlier in the session encountered a pretty powerful construct (which we decided to just run past after dropping it in a pit). As such, it wasn't exactly a surprise when we encountered something even more powerful later on. That said, a 15th level Harm spell does quite a bit of damage. Fortunately, it targeted the fighter and not me. :P
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or we are not getting the whole story.
Usually the case when we only hear from one person, and we hear it over the internet.
there must be at least 1 12th level caster to create such thingsWhen meeting an undead creature or golem, I don't normally work out the power level of whoever could have created such a thing and assume that they're about to attack me too. Should I?
If they are guarding a hut, then yes it is a pretty good idea to do so.
However, feel free to not if you don't want to, just saying I would certainly think about it.
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Personally I feel like judging an encounter based of meta-game knowledge (ie the level of spellcaster to raise a bloody skeleton) isn't fair to expect from players, and I'm guessing a GM that throws an encounter like this at a party is less than forthcoming on that information from a knowledge (religion), knowledge (arcane), or spellcraft check.
I don't think it is meta-game knowledge at all. Knowledge: Undead and Spellcraft (perhaps Knowledge: Arcane) are all skills that would inform someone on the basic rules of how the animate dead spell work. While characters wouldn't know 'the numbers' they obviously have some way to judge HD for acquiring correct components and the basic concept that more powerful necromancers can create more powerful undead would be something I would consider to not even require a knowledge check.
Knowing it takes a powerful caster to create a bloody troll skeleton is absolutely something many characters, and almost all parties, would be aware of.
That is why I put in the second part.
I'm guessing a GM that throws an encounter like this at a party is less than forthcoming on that information from a knowledge (religion), knowledge (arcane), or spellcraft check.
You might be interested to know that they pretty much have the encounter wrapped up at this point. No one even died.
It is really easy to disrupt hag coven spells.