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What have been your best/worst 4e combat encounters?
After years of DMing 3e/3.5e, I'm going to be running my first 4e session soon. To that end, as the title says, I'm interested in hearing about the best or worst combat encounters that you've experienced in 4e thus far, whether as DM or player. What was particularly memorable about it? What made it so good (or, conversely, so bad)? What did it teach you to do, or not to do, in a 4e game? Did it reveal something about 4e combat that you hadn't realized earlier?
In short, I'm curious.
__________________ shilsen is broken - Crothian (and this is why)
My Eberron Story Hour. Updated November 12. Almost at the climax!
After years of DMing 3e/3.5e, I'm going to be running my first 4e session soon. To that end, as the title says, I'm interested in hearing about the best or worst combat encounters that you've experienced in 4e thus far, whether as DM or player. What was particularly memorable about it? What made it so good (or, conversely, so bad)? What did it teach you to do, or not to do, in a 4e game? Did it reveal something about 4e combat that you hadn't realized earlier?
In short, I'm curious.
Best: Players went up against Szartharrax in Kobold Hall, and I used an article by Mr. Mearls to add a bunch of little situational effects: icicle "stalactites" that could be busted and impaled anyone in the square below (damage + dazed); small pools of water that had no effect other than flash-freezing anytime a Cold power went off in the square; I made the big pillars into icy pillars that could be smashed or toppled to cause an area burst of ice shards.
The PCs came in (three players, two of whom were playing 2 characters each) and the fight was epic. The players made use of the icy stalactites, but had bad rolls so they abandoned that (thinking it was "too hard," when in actuality it was just that they were rolling 2s and 3s to hit!). A few got stuck in flash-freeze pools for a round or so, but they locked down Szar real fast. At that point, even though the fight got a little static (I should have made Szar a little more brazen and willing to take some Opportunity Attacks), it was great because 2 PCs dropped and the fight looked grim.
But then, on the final Death save, both players rolled 20s! Szar's time was short after that.
Worst:
A bunch of goblins raided a village in the middle of the night. The fight was a foregone conclusion, but it took FOREVER to clean up the gobs because, once again, the players were rolling like $$@. In hindsight, I should have just said "they are minions, see you killing their friends, have a heart-attack, and die."
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Best 4e combat - I modified an encounter in Keep on the Shadowfell to make it more dangerous. What ended up happening is that as the party moved through a small maze of corridors, zombies attacked from all sides! Including behind them.
What made it great was that it used several different sorts of monster - a couple of artillery who could weaken those they hit, lots of minions, and several brutes. It also featured a leader who stood right back and actually led the monsters, keeping the players on their toes. He also then ran away so that the party will have to fight him again later!
There were also some terror runes on the floor that caused one character to run screaming down the corridor towards another bunch of zombies, and the many corridors meant the players tried some fun stuff with outflanking.
A really great fight, showcasing what 4e is good at.
I've had some less fun encounters - mostly where I've not properly upscaled an encounter to reflect how many PC's I have (up to 8 if they all turn up!). If it's lots of minions then they normally last only a round or two - very anti-climatic.
__________________ DM of Adventure Path Story Hour (now in Thunderspire Labyrinth!): Ryam Plays Dice - updated 8th June 09 (campaign on indefinite hiatus).
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Best 4e Fight: Probably the graveyard attack in Keep on the Shadowfell. That was fun. I modified it with a new enemy, an inqusitor from 2e, and scads of zombie minions.
Worst 4e Fight: I hesitate to say "worst" because none really stand out to me as particularly painful, dull or broken. There have been plenty of times where i forgot to use a monster's power so an encounter turns out easier than it should have. The last fight of KotS was easier than it should have been, for example.
It's funny because all of our combats have been exciting but tense. Mostly it is because in my group we all roll horribly. I've hit with my Warlock's Daily once in about 25 tries. So far I think combat in 4E is much less forgiving of bad die rolls than I remember earlier editions to be.
Hmm. I will answer first as a DM, then as a player:
From behind the screen:
My personal favorite by far has been a night fight on a bridge - the players were holding one end of the bridge to keep an undead army from sacking Fallcrest. I think they were 5th level at the time, though they might have been 6th. The bridge was rigged to collapse, and their job was to A) kill as many undead as possible then B) pull back, luring a good chunk of undead forward so that the villagers could drop the bridge when it was full of undead and isolate a chunk of the undead army on the Fallcrest side of the river where it could be destroyed without reinforcements.
They're crouched down at their of the bridge, a bonfire crackling behind them, listening to the sound of skirmishers dying in the darkness somewhere on the far side of the river - after a while, wounded skirmishers start slipping back across the bridge - the last one stops to light the bonfire on the far side of the bridge to increase visibility for the party, but it costs him his life - gravehound zombies pull him down halfway across the bridge and tear him to shreds. When they finish, the 7 gravehounds turn toward the party and lope towards them, at which point the pyromancer wizard lets off his fireball, hitting 6 of the 7 and doing half damage to the 7th and rolling close to max damage (I think it ended being around 130 points of damage total between all 7 of them). With that as the opening salvo, they quickly destroy the gravehounds. That nets them a short rest while the main undead army marches up. After assessing the situation, the undead general orders forward a 50 skeletons - 2 boneshards, 2 flame-throwing ones, and 46 minions. In front of the skeletons shambles a zombie bear with one paw hacked off and replaced with a magical axe (zombie hulk with some customization by me). The defenders lock down the bear, the wizard's flaming sphere and the cleric's consecrated ground move out onto the bridge creating an endless death zone for minions, and a fierce melee engages (complete with surprise flying zombies landing behind them). Finally, after expending most of their resources, the party stands triumphant - bruised, battered, but alive. We break for the week as the undead general rides out to parley with them.
Now, the first part of the fight had just been on my battlemat. When the players showed up the next week, they found that I'd built the entire bridge and both banks out of dungeon tiles, their minis were grouped defensively at one end of the bridge, and I'd set up every humanoid mini I owned on the other side of the bridge to give them a sense of scale on how many undead they still had left to fight. There was noticeably less pre-game banter as they surveyed the situation and exchanged "oh crap, he's going to TPK us again" looks.
Anyway, parley with the undead general is unsuccessful ("Would you like to join my side?" "Do we have to die to do it?" "Yeah, kind of" "Sorry, thanks but no") and they retreat back to their side to face a rush of zombies, this time with the general staying in the middle of the bridge and buffing his troops from the rear. Just as combat joins, they hear screams from beneath the bridge as ghouls (who took advantage of the parley to crawl under the bridge) kill the villagers who were supposed to knock the bridge down. The entire near side of the bridge is difficult terrain now due to the pools of blood and piles of shattered, burned skeletons. The fighter scrambles under the bridge (and is horrified to find himself facing 3 ghouls with no back-up), the paladin wades to the front line, and the cleric, wizard and warlock unleash hell. Fight lasted many, many rounds and went back and forth several times - finally the paladin managed to fight his way to the undead general and bull-rush him off the bridge, at the same time as the cleric rolled a crit on his athletics check to swing under the bridge and save the fighter from certain death (the fighter had just been coup-de-graced twice and was 2 hp away from negative bloodied).
After that the NPC wizard sets the bridge on fire, they collapse the bridge sending another 100 or so undead into the river, big heroes etc. All told I think they personally knocked off 80 + undead in those 3 fights, along with another 100-150 taken out by the bridge. Of course, that just meant Fallcrest's militia was outnumbered 3 to 1 instead of 4 to 1, but that's another story . . .
Worst fight as a DM so far - I've had a handful that ended up not being interesting for various reasons. I'd have to say the worst one was the time I TPKed them (final fight in KotS). They were missing a couple players for that session, I didn't scale the combat down correctly, and then they had 2 turns in a row of horrible tactics and horrible luck, and suddenly the fighter has been dragged into the portal, the warlord is unconscious, and the rogue is standing there bloodied and out-numbered 3 to 1 . . . not quite how I planned it, but sometimes TPK happens. Oh well, it ended up being a great excuse to run my zombie horror game ("some incompetent group of heroes didn't stop Kalarel! There's zombies everywhere! Run!")
As a player:
My personal favorite fight was the one where my warlord was on the wrong side of a nasty set of spiderwebs, in negative hp, had two failed death saves, and the rest of the party had no way to get to me before the spider did. I had pretty much resigned myself to my death and was working on new character concepts while everyone else took their turns, when it came around to me and I rolled a nat 20 on my death save with my lucky red d20. It's not all that, but it felt great to pop back onto my feet, and I've been very attached to that character ever since.
Worst fight would probably have to be in the game where I have the wizard - we'd just hit paragon, and were wandering down a tunnel some where when we got randomnly ambushed by a motley collection of slaad and destrachan. It was a crappy fight on every level - bad encounter design, horribly boring terrain, poor party cooperation, fight went on an hour and a half longer than it should have . . . gah that was an ugly night.
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
I've run a few dragons against 1st level teams and it's gone very well. One dragon I reskinned as a large acid-spewing centipede - the vermin of an island-sized roc nest- and that went very well. A very intense fight that pushed the players to the limit. I'm eager to use more solos.
The worst may have been 2 hobgoblin soldiers, which became the definition of grind as they never had a chance to kill the PC's but were hard to hit and had lots of HP.
--Z
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Thanks for the anecdotes. That's really helpful, and I can see that I'm going to be stealing (with proper attribution, of course) a lot from things which have been posted.
Oh, and Vayden - DAMN! Those two bridge fights sound positively epic.
Keep 'em coming, please.
__________________ shilsen is broken - Crothian (and this is why)
My Eberron Story Hour. Updated November 12. Almost at the climax!
Oh, and Vayden - DAMN! Those two bridge fights sound positively epic.
Keep 'em coming, please.
Hehe. I loved it. If you ask my players, that may actually be their 3rd or 4th favorite fight from that campaign. Other good ones from there:
4th level - the monastery siege:
The party was trying to take over a ruined monastery as a safe point for a bunch of villagers from Winterhaven who they'd evacuated ahead of the undead apocalypse. They found the monastery was occupied by goblins and besieged by skeletons - they rode their horses into the midst of the skeletons (4 boneshards and 25 minions) and had their first big fight with the new post-TPK party. It was an absolutely huge melee with minions dying left and right, and the boneshard's explosion effects chaining off of each other. Loads of fun.
6th level - Well of Demons
I pulled the Well of Demons mini-dungeon out of Thunderspire and re-skinned it as an extra-planar dungeon in a pocket dimension. When they got to the big set piece fight with the dragon and the rolling spiked ball of doom they just cut loose - they ended up bull-rushing and sliding the dragon into the path of the spiked ball multiple times. Poor dragon never stood a chance.
7th level - The Battle for Fallcrest
They used the delay from the bridge fight to go recruit an army of gnolls (retrieved a gnoll artifact I made up from the Well of Demons) and came back to smash into the rear of the undead army in the middle of the town. After a series of punishing melees and a skill challenge to keep the gnolls disciplined instead of falling into unorganized blood-lust, they finally cornered the undead general in the Square of the Fountains. I went all out no holds barred at them - one level 8 elite controller (general), 3 level 6 soldiers (Eaters of Knowledge from Pyramid of Shadows), 2 level 7 artillery on the roofs (trog. impaler re-skinned and another different Eater of Knowledge), a zombie hulk (level 8 brute) and a tomb guardian skeleton (level 10 brute that I dropped to level 9). The fight surged back and forth across the courtyard, people switching positions multiple times - at one point I had the entire party bloodied, the cleric was dying 2 or 3 different times, and I think most of them were in single digit hitpoints when they finally won. That one was a lot of fun too.
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
The most disappointing battle I had taught me a number of lessons, both 4e and DMing in general. I built the whole climactic encounter around a beautiful map I had downloaded from rpgmapshare (can't find the link at the moment). It was basically two towers connected by a narrow bridge, with a 3rd tower nearby but separate. I had everything all printed out and ready to go. The BBEG was on top of the bigger tower, shining his foozle all over the town, drawing undead to the attack that was going on. He was surrounded by bodyguards, and had a sniper on the 3rd tower. The PCs would have to come up through the trapdoor (which had a trap on it), fight their way across the bridge, take out the BBEG, and shut down the foozle to save the town from wholesale slaughter. Sounded great.
Of course, it all blew up in my face.
The rogue scrambled up the outside of the building to scout around. No problem - I just laid the minis he saw out on the map. They immediately decided to go up through the big tower, right underneath the BBEG, rather than going through the trapdoor. Sound plan, except I hadn't allowed for it. I had no idea what was in the big tower.
Panic ensues. Desperately, I said "Nothing. It's just ornamental. No one comes up this way." Railroaded them into coming up the way I wanted them to go. Mistake #1.
The trap goes off, doing quite a bit of damage. This was the first time they had come across a trap in 4e, so they weren't used to looking for them. Mistake #2.
The PCs, dutifully following my script, emerged onto the roof. The sniper opened fire, pinning them down. This actually went as planned. The problem was, as the tanks moved across the bridge (under fire), the BBEG (a skull lord), simply blasted them back. They couldn't make any headway, and used up all their big gun powers. Mistake #3 - make sure your very hard encounters are preceded by a long rest. I hadn't done that.
The PCs realized they had no hope of winning this battle and retreated. Their only hope was a long rest, while over a hundred villagers died around them. This was my biggest mistake. I had no backup plan in case they were unable to achieve their mission. They returned the next morning and pulled it out, but it was a very unsatisfying ending to what I hoped would be a great and glorious battle.
One of the battles I thought was coolest (although the players may not agree) was just prior to the one above. A sahaugin prince and priest came up out of the harbor, riding a giant slug and leading a squad of undead minions. They proceeded up a narrow street like a panzer tank with infantry, destroying property and scattering bystanders. The PCs mowed down the minions, but ran afoul of the slug's spit, which immobilized a couple of them. The prince then dismounted and beat the tar out of them. Laid all but one of them out (the rogue, who had snuck around and was having a shootout with the priest), then just turned and walked away. This gave the PCs time to recover and regroup, and they eventually won.
I think the biggest skill the DM has to learn in 4e is how to adjust on the fly. You should be able to see in the early rounds if the PCs are screwed or not. If so, you need to think about lowering the bad guy numbers (HP, defenses, damage, whatever) or, if too late, a reasonable action for the bad guy to take when the PCs go down, that won't result in a TPK. Good luck.
Oh, and gnolls are fun, too, when the PCs start get a little cocky. There's a great variety of them available on the 'net, and those suckers are fast! They force the PCs to react fluidly, or one of their number will get ganged up on and taken down very quickly.
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Best fight as a DM: I'd have to say my favorite was the battle with the orc warchief, Mogor the Invincible. Mogor was a custom solo monster, an orc who fought with a sword in one hand and a warhammer in the other. The sword dealt nasty damage, while the warhammer had various knockback effects.
Mogor had a special shtick: He was called "the Invincible" for a reason. His sword was the stolen family heirloom of the eladrin warlord PC, and while he held it he could not be slain - he regenerated 50 hp per round, and if he went down, he popped back up again with 150 hp. To add insult to injury, he'd had iron bands welded into place around his sword hand, so that he physically could not be made to let go of the sword.
The only way to take him down was to target the sword hand (a very difficult target, AC 28 for a 6th-level party), and do enough damage to break the iron bands and sever the hand. After that, he lost his invincible-ness and his sword attacks, but he was still a bad-ass solo.
The background of the encounter: Mogor was leading an orc army against a goblin stronghold. The PCs were not friendly with either side and wanted them both to take heavy losses. They had infiltrated the goblin stronghold through the ruins underneath it, and made a deal with the leader of a band of human mercenaries who had been dragooned into service by the goblins.
The PCs debated strategy for a while and finally decided to draw Mogor down into the ruins below the castle proper, into a big room with pillars holding up the ceiling, formerly the lair of a dragon (the PCs had already slain the dragon on their way in). The pillars were badly corroded by the dragon's acid and could be knocked down with enough damage. Some Dungeoneering checks revealed that four pillars would be enough to bring down the roof. The PCs figured this would be their failsafe; if they couldn't take Mogor, they'd collapse the roof on him and hope some of them made it out. They weakened several pillars before the fight, then went upstairs to find Mogor.
Mogor and his soldiers had just broken through the castle's defenses. The PCs got his attention and led him down through the dungeons and into the dragon's lair, where the mercenaries were waiting. Mogor burst in at the head of a horde of orcs, and the mercenaries engaged the orcs (NPC fight, handled by DM fiat) while Mogor himself went for the PCs.
The PCs encircled Mogor and hit him with several well-aimed daily powers, giving themselves major boosts to their attack rolls. This was vitally important, since it let them target his sword hand effectively. Then they set to work beating him down while the orcs pushed the mercenaries back. It took a while and he did a lot of damage, but finally they cut off his sword hand.
By this point, most of the mercenaries had fallen, and orcs continued to flood into the lair. The eladrin warlord scooped up his family sword, and the party knocked out the pillars while Mogor, undaunted, smashed at them with his warhammer. Then, as the roof started to crack and crumble, the PCs fought their way through the orcs to escape.
At the last moment, Mogor threw his warhammer aside and grabbed hold of the eladrin warlord (who had already used his fey step), trying to drag him back into the room so they would both be crushed. The eladrin made an excellent Athletics check and broke free, and one of the other PCs - the human fighter, I think - hauled him out of the lair just as the ceiling came down, burying Mogor under tons of rock. It was a hell of a conclusion.
Worst fight as a DM: I'd have to say the third fight in the very first session of my campaign, where I put a 1st-level party without a wizard up against two dire rats and three rat swarms. It was very cramped quarters - I hadn't yet learned the importance of maneuvering room in 4E - and the party lacked any effective way to fight swarms. The fighter got overwhelmed and eaten, straight from positive hit points to negative bloodied in a single round of swarm attacks. That fight was a mess.
Of course, there was also the preview session I ran with the Raiders of Oakhurst dungeon. The fight with the black dragon was godawful, just endless grinding and grinding with the players unable to make much of a dent in its hit points while it wore them down one by one. Bah.
Best fight as a player: The bridge fight Vayden described above (I was the pyromancer).
Worst fight as a player: There isn't any one fight that stands out as worst to me from the player perspective, because in 4E, the worst fights are the boring ones that slip into "grindspace," which means they're not very memorable. Some of the Keep on the Shadowfell fights were like that, as were most of the fights in our abortive "orc warriors" campaign.
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Best fight: A long, grueling "guerrilla tactics" war against a Lizardfolk siege of a keep mired in a swamp. The DM created an entire map with texture, terrain, a to-scale keep, and other awesome stuff. We took pictures. It was an epic fight that took the entire session (4+ hours). I'd give more specifics, but it's a converted Age of Worms battle and I don't want to spoil anything.
Worst fight: Another group fought a Fettered Dracolich from the FRCG...only for some reason, it had the HP and defenses of the 18th level Dracolich from the MM. We tried TWICE to take it on, but our heavy hitters needed a 19-20 on the die to hit, and that just wasn't happening despite my Warlord's help. The DM was pretty much ready to quit 4E until we double-checked his math and figured out where the error was. (He still has no idea how he made the mistake).
So we ended up extending the session by another hour and gave it another go. Third time was definitely the charm.
By this point, most of the mercenaries had fallen, and orcs continued to flood into the lair. The eladrin warlord scooped up his family sword, and the party knocked out the pillars while Mogor, undaunted, smashed at them with his warhammer. Then, as the roof started to crack and crumble, the PCs fought their way through the orcs to escape.
At the last moment, Mogor threw his warhammer aside and grabbed hold of the eladrin warlord (who had already used his fey step), trying to drag him back into the room so they would both be crushed. The eladrin made an excellent Athletics check and broke free, and one of the other PCs - the human fighter, I think - hauled him out of the lair just as the ceiling came down, burying Mogor under tons of rock. It was a hell of a conclusion.
Yeah, that fight with Mogor was amazing. (I was the Eladrin Warlord). The one with the vampire in the chapel with the moving bands of deadly shadow was one of your best jobs ever too (and on basically a throw-away fight!) But for me, the spider-web thing stuck out as my favorite so far, just for the moment of thinking I'd lost the character and then suddenly coming back. Although I admit that if I'd managed to kill Mogor with my own hand instead of 5 tons of falling rock, I might rate that one as my favorite.
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
Well, I guess my best fights don't stand a chance compared to the ones already discussed (dammit...) but I do have a terrible one that probably tops the lot.
We were supposed to retreive an amulet (a sword? a relic of some sort? we were told to go get it but were never told what exactly we were supposed to retreive) so we walk into the first room. There's some goblins looking the other way. We try to gain a surprise round with a stealth check (what a waste of a natural 20) only to have it rejected by the DM, saying there are rats in the room that see us and start yelling, thus alerting the goblins. So now there are rats thrown into the encounter. Whatever. a party of 3 level 1 characters against 3 goblin blackblades, and 5 rat swarms. Most uninteresting way to fall into grindspace.
Skip ahead 45 minutes, we move into the next room only to throw a switch (there were a lot of switches for one room, each setting of another ridiculous trap) and have MORE rat swarms chasing us. 2 hours we spent fighting off rats, only to swear off rats from any D&D game for the rest of forever.
If you want people to stop comparing D&D 4e to WoW you have to stop using the term reskin, lol.
Anyway, I haven't had a chance to play too many 4e games yet due to life, but our first combat in KotS against that kobold ambush comes to mind as the best, if only because it was the first time any party in any version of D&D I've run had realistically been challenged by kobolds. Having my players ask me, exaserbatedly, "He's not dead yet?!" and to later have a player stand up and shout "I hate kobolds!" after the battle brought a smile to my face.
Finally, kobolds challenged a party and it wasn't in Dragon Mountain!
On a side note, I think the game really picks up at 5th level - once players have 2 dailies at their disposal, they seem to stop hoarding dailies quite so much, and the encounters before the "boss fight" start to get more interesting.
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
I will likely post a more thorough answer. But here's a 'my worst, because of sheer luck':
The PCs were in a room full of traps. The floor was designed to crumble if you staye din one spot too long. A scything blade trap was going. The controls for the spiked trap (and the Key for a room they needed) was behind a steel gate. The steel gate was also trapped.
A rotwing zombie was flying around the room.
A PC charged the steel gate, the zombie charged the PC. The PC set off the steel gate trap; it swung open. It misses the PC, but hit the zombie. The zombie ends up pinned to the wall, and unable to escape, while taking ongoing damage from the spikes in the gate.
The PCs just grab the key and stroll out (after taking some damage from the scything blade trap).
It lasted all of 2 rounds. After I had spent so long designing that room, too.
I can't explain specifics since our games are all homebrew and nothing I say will make sense out of context. So I'll leave it generic...
The best/most memorable/most exciting encounters have been ones with varied terrain and/or mix of monster tactics and abilities. We very easily get in to a rut when it's an open field... but toss us in some corridors with maybe a pit in the middle and we have to break out of our rut and get more creative. Plus, having the mix of monsters keeps it from getting boring to fight "yet another kobold in this army"
On the flip side, something I've realized (and it's buried in the DMG somewhere), if the battle is going very one sided in favor of the PCs but it's just taking too long to widdle away his hp, then don't be afraid to pretend he dies one or two hits sooner than he would otherwise -- dragging out a fight that is obvious just becomes tedious.
Also, encounters that aren't spun (a little) towards the group's composition can be a bit frustrating. I'm not saying to always spin it, just once in a while... if you have controllers in the party, toss in more minions. If you have lots of strikers and defenders, toss in lots of brutes and soldiers. And so on.. it'll take a few encounters to realize what the right mix is... again, don't always do it, but once in a while (otherwise you'll see your party wizard get frustrated for never being able to do more than nick the bbeg, or your strikers will get annoyed to whip out 30 points of damage to overkill minion after minion).
that's just been my experience so far anyway.
By the way, great thread, i like reading this stuff (it's given me a little inspiration and also insight as to what my players may be thinking)
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It will have campaign logs and random thoughts...
On the flip side, something I've realized (and it's buried in the DMG somewhere), if the battle is going very one sided in favor of the PCs but it's just taking too long to widdle away his hp, then don't be afraid to pretend he dies one or two hits sooner than he would otherwise -- dragging out a fight that is obvious just becomes tedious.
Also, encounters that aren't spun (a little) towards the group's composition can be a bit frustrating. I'm not saying to always spin it, just once in a while... if you have controllers in the party, toss in more minions. If you have lots of strikers and defenders, toss in lots of brutes and soldiers. And so on.. it'll take a few encounters to realize what the right mix is... again, don't always do it, but once in a while (otherwise you'll see your party wizard get frustrated for never being able to do more than nick the bbeg, or your strikers will get annoyed to whip out 30 points of damage to overkill minion after minion).
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
The one with the vampire in the chapel with the moving bands of deadly shadow was one of your best jobs ever too (and on basically a throw-away fight!)
Ah yes, the cathedral fight...
The PCs had just entered an infernal cathedral in the Shadowfell, and emerged into the nave (for those unfamiliar with cathedral architecture, that's the big main room with the really high arched ceiling). There were statues in alcoves along the sides, and red stained glass windows through which shifting lights shone.
The lights through the windows produced bands of shadow which moved along the floor. Each band was 1 square wide, and they were spaced 3 squares apart. Each round, they moved one square toward the entrance. When one of them moved past the end of the nave, it vanished and a new one appeared at the other end. If you passed through a shadow-band, it inflicted (IIRC) 15 points of necrotic damage, and each one dealt damage separately, so if you just charged straight down the middle, you'd almost certainly kill yourself. I represented the shadow-bands with strips of black cloth on the battlemat.
The alcoves in the walls were out of the path of the shadow-bands, so the PCs could duck in and hide there. However, when they did so, the statues would animate and attack them. Disabling the statues was relatively easy but did take a little time, so the PCs had to work their way down the nave, ducking into an alcove to avoid the shadow-bands, killing the statue there, then darting around into the next alcove.
At the far end of the cathedral was a vampire wizard (another custom monster, I think based off a sahuagin priest - I usually have at least one homebrewed monster per session) who blasted the PCs with long-range lightning attacks as they approached. As soon as they got close, she started using her vampiric powers to dominate and bite. Ordinarily, the party would have made short work of her by herself; but because the shadow-bands and the statues slowed them up so much, she really wore them down before they were finally able to close and finish her. She almost got away, too.
I didn't actually expect that fight to be as dramatic as it was; it wasn't even a boss fight, just one encounter on the way into the dungeon below the cathedral. But it ended up being a really memorable battle, and one that emphasized for me just how important terrain is to making a good fight.
Another thing worth noting about that battle is that it didn't put the PCs in any great danger. They had to work for their victory, but at no point was it really a close contest. But the challenge of negotiating the treacherous terrain, and the vampire's ability to pull out new surprises as they got closer, kept everyone excited and engaged. That also was a lesson to me: Not every exciting fight has to end with half the party on the floor and the rest in single digits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vayden
But for me, the spider-web thing stuck out as my favorite so far, just for the moment of thinking I'd lost the character and then suddenly coming back. Although I admit that if I'd managed to kill Mogor with my own hand instead of 5 tons of falling rock, I might rate that one as my favorite.
Yeah, the spider-web thing was very cool, but mainly because your character pulled it out with a spectacular save at the last instant - it wasn't anything about the encounter setup that made it stand out.
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Last edited by Dausuul; 19th December 2008 at 08:54 PM..
- Crothian (and 
Oh well, it ended up being a great excuse to run my zombie horror game ("some incompetent group of heroes didn't stop Kalarel! There's zombies everywhere! Run!")
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