Episode 4a - It's All Over For The Wizard

The demise of Open the tiefling wizard at Ygron's Bridge had as its immediate cause the dreadful Death Save rolls that Alex was unfortunate enough to make. Another, earlier, bad roll -  a very low initiative - had an important influence as well, as it left Open acting after the enemy, while his fellows were before them. This left him exposed and distant from his comrades at a critical moment and meant that when he went down, he had to start making death saves before any one else could act.

I did the number wrangling on the subject of death saves, and if you leave a character on 0 hit points without healing or further damage, the figures come out as follows after 5 rounds (by which time the injured party must be either stable or dead):

• Conscious with 1 Hit Point: 18.1%
• Unconscious But Stable: 41.4%
• Dead: 40.5%

The chance of dying after only two rounds, as Open did, is 4.25%, so he really was rather unfortunate. Any other result would have allowed Kam to stabilise him, but the vanara was just too far away to get to him in one round.

Here are some other thoughts, though:

The battle at Ygron's Bridge demonstrated that the mechanism in 5e for measuring encounter difficulty is a fairly vague instrument, and that a difference in tactical situation can make a huge difference to the lethality of the combat. It might surprise the players that the second part of the encounter - the fight against the Followers of Ulur in the derelict tower - offered on paper a lower level of threat than the preceding battle with the animated items on the bridge itself.

To wit:
1. Animated Armour (CR1, 200xp) + 3 Flying Weapons (CR 1/4, 50xp) = 350xp
    --> Encounter Budget = 350 x 2 (3-6 opponents) = 700xp
2. Minor Priest* (CR1, 200xp) + 3 Cultists (CR 1/8, 25xp) = 275xp
    --> Encounter Budget = 275 x 2 (3-6 opponents) = 550xp

For a 2nd level party of 5 (4 PCs + 1 NPC) this makes Part 1, Hard; Part 2, Moderate. Clearly, that's not the way it played...

The opponents in part 1 were in plain sight, in the middle of a bridge, and simply attacked the nearest opponent within 60ft. They had no situational advantages and employed no co-operative tactics. The opponents in part 2 were in a building, with good cover, had observed the first combat without joining it, and had a leader exercising tactical control.

The animated weapons and armour were pure melee combatants. The armour took a while to grind down, but there was never any feeling that anything was happening that was beyond the ability of the PCs to control. The animated objects did however achieve something that was valuable to the next set of opponents - they soaked up most of the Wizard's firepower. If the combats had taken place the other way round, the tower would have been rather less challenging.

The Followers of Ulur, on the other hand, were all equipped with missile weapons, and had cover (behind arrow loops or on the roof). Having observed the progress of part 1 their leader, Hauska, cleric of Ulur, had a good picture of his opponents. In particular he had identified the spellcasters, who were then prioritised as targets**. Furthermore, he was himself a spellcaster, with guiding bolt prepared (4d6 damage on a hit, so 4-24, avg 14). Things could actually have been a lot worse - if he had hit more than once with this spell, this easily could have resulted in Kam getting taken down as well.

It probably shouldn't be a surprise that tactical considerations can make a big difference to combat lethality, but it does serve to illustrate that purely book-keeping methods of measuring encounter difficulty aren't necessaily particularly reliable.


I like the Death Save mechanism, which avoids the situation where the other PCs metagame the amount of time left till a character bleeds out, which you get in Pathfinder, and makes immediate support for downed characters more imperative. Occasionally it will get nasty very quickly, though, as it did here.

* a scaled down version of the NPC "Priest" in the MM. I took 2 levels off him, so fewer HP and no 3rd level spells. But it was a 1st level spell that did the real harm, and no-one did him any damage till they got into melee with the half-orcs, so the hit points didn't come into play at first either.

** Let's call this the "No Sleep" tactic. When the defenders have low hit points (as is likely in low level encounters) and are in a confined area, it's entirely possible for a well aimed sleep spell, of the kind available to any 1st level arcane caster, and giving no saving throw, to render the whole lot inoperative for a whole minute. So, effective spell as it is, sleep has a double edge; any opponent who understands how dangerous it is, will inevitably aim to remove enemy arcanists from the battlefield as quickly as possible, at the furthest possible range. In this combat, the half-orcs' concentration of attacks on Open was actually largely a waste of resources, since he had burnt his 1st level spells already - sleep was no longer at the table. But they weren't to know that.

***My opinion is that guiding bolt is too powerful for a 1st level divine caster - the arcane equivalent, chromatic orb, does comparable damage but requires a 50gp diamond as focus, and has no follow on effect. I don't like seeing clerics being as effective as "blasters" as wizards. But I'm trying not to house-rule at this early stage, and it's there for the players, so inevitably the enemy will be using it as well.