Slave Ship - Zombie Voyage 25 March - Player Comments and Feedback

Say, I wasn't there for most of the adventure, but I was curious what you all thought. For WAR!, I've been thinking about doing some battles with a horde of minions or a very large group of lower level monsters. I wanted to know what you all thought of the battles/ adventure from last Friday before I incorporate something similar. When Kobe and I left you guys, the battle was well underway and when we got back from class, it was still going. With that many enemies, did the players need more time to plan thier moves (e.g. if there was only a solo monster, there's no decision as to which monster to attack), or was it difficult to move the large number of enemies and then make a large number of attacks, or was it the weakening power of the creatures (for which there was no save), or was it just the party makeup (e.g. no Controllers)?

Other comments/ thoughts?

I think the battle took as long as it did because the party didn't have an "area blaster". Either an area attack striker or a controller would have greatly spead up the encounter.

Also, having the leader have an aura of weakness effectively doubled their hitpoints, making the battle take longer.

Depending on the party makeup a horde of minions will either be a TPK or trivial. If the minions can actually hit the PCs reasonably well and there are no area attackers then the party could get overrun. Sure a PC can take down one or two a turn, but will be getting hit 2-3 times per turn themselves. That's with melee minions, if you have ranged minions, the PCs may be in for a lot of trouble.

Having lots of lower level NPC may just be time consuming if they can't really hit a PC. The PCs will most likely hit on 80% of the time while the NPCs will miss 80% of the time.

Minions are best used as a diversion or buffer for the real NPC threat.

This was supposed to be an easy encounter, the monsters being only level 6 (the hi HP monsters) and the level 7 minions. I didn't even know they had Auras until the first few rounds. I probably wouldn't have used them otherwise.

Also, people were getting tired of the battle after awhile and were taking a lot longer for their turns.
People need to know their modifiers for regular and critical attacks/damage before their turn. Taking notes on the power cards would help with this a lot.

For mass battle I think the the Eladrin dinosaur riders attacking the city was a better example of a party dealing with waves of attackers.