To Reroll or not, that is the question!

[MetaMyconid]

^ Well more of a statement if you believe the punctuation.
Anywizzle.

I've recently started a campaign with a new DM, new meaning that this is my first campaign with him, and that this is the first campaign he's been running, which is why he usually had me handle the encounters whilst he worked on the story an arrangement I;m completely okay with, however this particular session I asked him to run the encounters because I'd spent the day before organizing encounters for a session I'm running and just wanted to relax and kill some constructs.

So he sent the party on an assassination mission against a captain of an enemy force, and he started out doing pretty well, our party (level 2 Druid, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer and Soulknife/Hexblade) had managed to deal with the encounters as expected, a dire rat, some sort of oversized spider and a few kobolds so no biggies.

Then we encountered the constructs, and this is where it went to hell, see, he hadn't used an existing creature, he'd gone and homebrew'd one himself.
These constructs were using a torch in their off hand, and a bastard sword in the other. Take note of that.

Within 2 rounds of combat with just one of these constructs the druid had been wiped from existence and we didn't have a cleric handy, once the second joined combat the hexblade/soulknife went down and stabilized at -7hp. Myself and the sorcerer had been a fair bit ahead of the other 2 as we'd been chasing down the kobolds to make sure they didn't escape and bring friends when we encountered the second construct. In melee range. It tore the sorcerer apart due to him having an AC of 12 and using a quarter staff.

I then managed to kill the construct due a combination of me getting lucky on me Dex roll and ending up with 19 AC (10 base, 3 from armour 1 from being a halfling another one from halflings +2 dex and the rest from rolling 18 on dex), my ability to to use the environment to my advantage and my adaptability, I was then beset upon by FOUR of these constructs who were constantly trying to grapple me despite my constant escape artist checks succeeding as soon as it was possible for me to escape. Then then encircled me, to make it impossible for me to escape. So I chose the only available option; Fight to the death, I almost had them when I was slain.

I accepted the death as fair, and as the guy usually in charge of encounters I asked to see the sheets for these constructs and he showed them to me, and then I saw something. Well, more like I didn't see some things. First of all, they hadn't had a creature type listed, secondly, they didn't have a class (Which I know is acceptable in a lot of cases but for this it isn't) and finally, these creature had no proficiencies. At all. Remember the bastard swords from earlier? Yeah, they should have been taking a -4 penalty to attack rolls, which they weren't being given. Meaning that death shouldn't have happened.

So we've come to a brick wall.

Do we undo like half an hour of gameplay and return the party to the state they were in before the constructs attacked like I suggested or, do we "get over it an reroll" as the guy responsible for this mess suggests?

tl;dr: the DM messed up and we're paying for it, what do?

[Nanshork]

In the SRD under the Construct type:

Proficient with its natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with any weapon mentioned in its entry.

If he homebrewed a construct that has bastard swords they are automatically proficient.

[Stratovarius]

By and large, any humanoid monster is considered automatically proficient with weapons in its entry. It saved WotC the trouble of giving bonus feats for all kinds of different weapons that monsters had.

[MetaMyconid]

What's the definition for humanoid enemy?

These were described as "4 legged spiders with 2 arms coming from the top"
Which is where it kinda of throws me

It's less humanoid than a centaur, but theoretically like it can see, and it can swing it's weapons like a human.

[Nanshork]

What's the definition for humanoid enemy?

These were described as "4 legged spiders with 2 arms coming from the top"
Which is where it kinda of throws me

It's less humanoid than a centaur, but theoretically like it can see, and it can swing it's weapons like a human.

If not a construct that would be of type Monstrous Humanoid which has the same line about being proficient with any weapon in its entry.

Also, just fyi, most monsters don't have class levels.  They gain their HD/BAB/etc from just being the monster.

[MetaMyconid]

Alright, thanks guys!

Looks like it's time to test out that bard I've been wanting to play with then!

[Nanshork]

Not a problem, happy to help.

To be fair, it does sound like the DM homebrewed an encounter that was much too difficult for you guys.  Hopefully it doesn't happen again!

[Stratovarius]

That it does. That's not understanding why monsters are at a given CR, or how abilities are going to affect the PCs. There's a reason most low level monsters tend to have 1d4 and 1d6 weapons - so they don't have a chance to one-shot PCs, except on an unlucky dice roll. The raging orc barbarian with a greatsword is definitely to be avoided.

[Unbeliever]

To be fair, it does sound like the DM homebrewed an encounter that was much too difficult for you guys.  Hopefully it doesn't happen again!

Yeah, this was part of what I was going to say.  In general, I try to avoid making monsters wholecloth and just tweak ones to fit, if needed.  That way, any imbalance can be laid at the feet of WotC and I can pretend to be blameless ...

[MetaMyconid]

That's why he usually puts me in charge of the encounters,

Speaking of lazily editting WotC, I don't think any of my low-level plays realize just exactly how many creatures they've faced have almost the exact same sheets as a kobold, hahaha.

I'm not entirely sure if it's worth petitioning over or if I should just reroll.

[ksbsnowowl]

To be fair, it does sound like the DM homebrewed an encounter that was much too difficult for you guys.  Hopefully it doesn't happen again!

Yeah, this was part of what I was going to say.  In general, I try to avoid making monsters wholecloth and just tweak ones to fit, if needed.  That way, any imbalance can be laid at the feet of WotC and I can pretend to be blameless ...

Yeah, as screwy and inaccurate as the CR system is, most of the time it does a fair job of estimating what the PC's should be able to handle, especially at the low levels (which by far has the most play testing).

Let's assume these were 2 HD constructs with moderate Strength (15).  I'm going to assume there were no two-weapon fighting penalties involved (because that seems like the sort of thing that would happen with this kind of situation), so that's two attacks at +3, one for 1d10+2, and the other for 1d4 or 1d6 fire.

Also, as Medium constructs, they get 20 bonus hit points.  So that's 31 hit points each, probably with an AC around 14 or 15.

A quick cursory look through the SRD shows Sahuagin are somewhat close to those parameters, though they have 1/3 the hit points, plus a rake attack that can be used underwater.  Sahuagin are CR 2.  So at best these constructs were CR 2, if not CR 3.  And you faced FOUR of them at once?  After having fought other stuff that day?  That's tough.  The four together was either EL 6 or 7, depending on where exactly you'd peg the CR.

If I were in your shoes, I'd agree to start over, but only after the DM promised not to make his own monsters from scratch, and he promised to actually use the CR system to at least guide his decision on what to place against you.  Basically I would not have any trust in his ability to run a game that won't slaughter the PC's, because he doesn't seem to recognize what is an appropriate challenge and what isn't.

(click to show/hide)

Note, I'm not saying a DM should never place overly-challenging encounters against his PC's, but an EL 6 or 7 encounter for 2nd level guys is not right.  Characters at that level are still way too squishy to be able to deal with an encounter that far above their heads.  Two bastard sword hits still have a good chance of dropping any member of the party into negatives.

I once had a near TPK by putting a single CR 3 Wight against a party of three 2nd level gestalt characters.  Only one PC survived, and that's because he ran away.  The other two became more wights.  You have to be REALLY careful with going over-CR in the low levels.  There is a reason the Monster Manual is stocked with CR 1/3 and 1/4 monsters.

[Sjappo]

I accepted the death as fair, and as the guy usually in charge of encounters I asked to see the sheets for these constructs and he showed them to me, and then I saw something. Well, more like I didn't see some things. First of all, they hadn't had a creature type listed, secondly, they didn't have a class (Which I know is acceptable in a lot of cases but for this it isn't) and finally, these creature had no proficiencies. At all. Remember the bastard swords from earlier? Yeah, they should have been taking a -4 penalty to attack rolls, which they weren't being given. Meaning that death shouldn't have happened.

So we've come to a brick wall.

Do we undo like half an hour of gameplay and return the party to the state they were in before the constructs attacked like I suggested or, do we "get over it an reroll" as the guy responsible for this mess suggests?

tl;dr: the DM messed up and we're paying for it, what do?

Well, the DM messed up but I find it hard to blame him. As I read it he has never designed an encounter before. This was his first one. He tried to be original, which should be applauded I think, but made the monsters way to strong. Alright, lesson learned I guess. He'll do better next time.

I do find the whole "he didn't write down X so the should have -Y on something" comment a bit annoying. Your DM created some monsters and, presumably, only wrote down the things he was going to use in combat. If something was missing he could come up with it on the fly. I really don't see the harm in that. If he missed some vital piece of information, please enlighten me. But creature type, classlevel and proficiencies are really not that crucial.

[ksbsnowowl]

I do find the whole "he didn't write down X so the should have -Y on something" comment a bit annoying. Your DM created some monsters and, presumably, only wrote down the things he was going to use in combat. If something was missing he could come up with it on the fly. I really don't see the harm in that. If he missed some vital piece of information, please enlighten me. But creature type, classlevel and proficiencies are really not that crucial.

This is a good point.  Have you ever seen monster stat blocks from 1st or 2nd edition?  Two half-lines of text.  That's it.  Really, so long as they are level appropriate, you only need the numbers that the PC's will interact with (HP's, saves, AC, Init).