Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-25547106-20160119161220/@comment-24934423-20160216223730

It's about how the fight starts. From what it sounds like, you're implying that I flood the room before the group even gets there. This is not the case. Such circumstances would be unfair and punishing to the players.

At the moment, the dungeon has 4 main fighting areas. The first one is the entrance, where there will be 4 kobolds, 3 mooks and an elite, and they are at a disadvantage due to sunlight sensitivity. This makes it easy to sneak up on them and splatter the elite one in possibly 1 hit. It's a trash fight, but it can act as the introduction to the gimmick. If left alive for a whole round, the elite will call in a mook who would spend its turn dashing to the fight. This can happen for 3 turns, after which it'll call again with no result. On its next turn, if it's still alive, it'll flee into the cave.

The next room has 4 mooks and 2 elites (or 3 if the other one survived). They can call in a mook each per turn, and up to 3 each will show up (if an elite dies, the reinforcement count won't dwindle, just the rate in which they show up). There will be a 5-foot radius, 10-foot deep pitfall trap with 3 spears pointing upwards 10 feet away from the party when they enter the room. A DC 10 Survival or Perception check will let the players know it's there, based on the footprints surrounding it. The room then branches in two directions, one leads to another kobold fight and the other to the boss.

The other kobold room is identical to the previous one, minus an elite, the pitfall trap and the fleeing elites. What makes it any harder would be the reduced ammount of resources the party has to deal with it. It's the general storage room where the party can patch themselves up in, with access to a few healing potions mixed in with the other junk. Investigation or Perception is needed to find them.

The boss room will have 3 elites (+1 if 1 managed to retreat here) and the boss. Like before, it'll take a turn each for more to show up and then act. It's a boss fight; it's supposed to be hard, not impossible. Basicly, the group nukes the elites to remove them from the fight early, bringing the mook intake to a screeching halt. Afterwards, the fight becomes easy. Let the mooks build up, and the only logical option would be to retreat.

To keep players happy, if any players are trapped, either because they're helpless or they surrender, they'll be kept as prisoners/hostages, rather than be killed.

As the DM, I reserve the right to make any funny things happen in my campain, so long as it stays fun for my players. Heck, I let the Warlock sleep with the mayor's secretary for rolling 20+ on multiple Persuasion checks. Then again, he'll be getting a surprise later... Anyway, a non-magical longsword+1 isn't gamebreaking. Later, the players can find a magical one that lets them bypass damage resistances or immunities, keeping the equipment growth-rate on track. In 3.0, masterwork weapons were a thing, and that's where I draw inspiration for this one.