Epic Level Encounter Ideas

I thought a thread describing, not stats, but the IDEAS for Epic Level Encounters might be fun. I don't mean overall plots, but individual encounters with a particular challenge. Not just the monster in question, but what makes the tactical encounter with that monster INTERESTING.

Let me start with one I plan to run tonight.


The Shadow Flame
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An Elder Psuedonatural Horror is locked in battle with a deity of at least intermediate stature. The thing itself is mostly immobile, a tendriled flame glowing various sickly colors, in the center of the room attempting to climb out of a vast pit. If any being casts a shadow from this light, they will begin to sicken, and soon their shadows will come to life to try to kill them and replace them.

The god has countered this by causing the walls of the cavern to glow brightly, filling any shadow cast from the central flame and thus preventing the danger. However, dark eldritch "things" continuously exit from the flame, which not only block the light from the outer walls if they can, but actively dispel the light in bits and pieces.

Already, the god is fighting a few of its own shadows AS WELL as the eldritch horrors AS WELL as the flame itself, but alone, it cannot hope to succeed... because the horror is a creature of Shadow, of the Future, and destroying one only destroys one possible configuration of it. Kill it, and it merely changes. As long as there are new shapes it can form, it cannot be destroyed, merely contained.

If the god were to give up, the horror would flood the world in its light, casting all existence into the shadow...

To Defeat: The Players must keep moving, and move carefully, to avoid the eldritch minions' shadows about the landscape. They must continue killing the minions or all the counter-light will go out, but the minions will keep coming-- infinite spawn. They must also deal with the various shadows that DO come alive, or die.

The players must learn, or figure out, that the flame can be shaped into various platonic forms from which it constructs its other possibilities-- this may take the use of an artifact or other quest object, but that's not the concern of THIS encounter (Assume they have the tools needed). If they deplete the flame's HP without this knowledge, it will infinitely respawn at full health once dropped to 0. If they do figure it out, they must hold the flame into the 5 smallest platonic forms via skill checks-- 4 sided, 6 sided, 8 sided, 12 sided, and 20 sided.

Hey Fieari mate - cool idea!

Recently I was thinking about an encounter (delve) whereby you would need to go into the mind of a childishly deranged demigod. Some ideas were drawn from M. S. Escher.

The Deranged Demigod

Jigsaw guards. These two-dimensional golems would look like jigsaw pieces with guards drawn on one side and part of a monstrous guardian on the other. When enough pieces join together they spin around revealing the more dangerous monster.

Giant (Writer's) Hands. These giant disembodied spider-like hands are sometimes used as mounts for the jigsaw guards. They are armed with pens of comparable size. They can stab with these and squirt ink, but if left alone (they don't get hit that round) they can draw objects which come to life (including jigsaw guards and even other hands).

Clockwork Chattering (Temporal) Teeth. If they bite you, you lose a healing surge each round until you destroy them.

Unravelling Mind. This giant 'flat worm' can arrange itself into the shape of a huge head (that of the deranged demigod) with a face on both sides (one happy, one angry/bitter). When it starts to shapeshift into this form you can choose to stand on the inside or the outside of the head. Those on the side of the angry face get attacked (and this side cannot be attacked). Those on the side of the happy face can attack it and don't get attacked back. But the chance of each side is random.

From the Epic+ Fae thread...

Upper_Krust said:

Arboreant (Treant Living Forest)

Click to expand...

This is a Super-Solo for certain, with the outter layer being, effectively, an "Awakened Verdigris Tsunami" spell, and then the inner part would be a dungeon. So you fight the tsunami to a standstill (just an advancing wall on the battlemap, crushing the city you're in as it goes), and then enter the woods...

Step one in the dungeon would be to clear a space in the forest/jungle... you'd be surrounded by minions with Hardness (I guess in 4e that's Resist All) 20 or 40 or something, to represent cutting down trees.

Once you've got space to move without the forest simply reaching out and grabbing you, then you get to progress towards the Heart of the Forest, encountering various faerie tale scenarios in the dark wood as you go. A full fledged dungeon. To go from "room" to "room" of the dungeon, they have to clear the faerie tale challenge that's in front of them, and then cut their way to the next segment (again, through minion Ents with hardness).

Each of the rooms will have a binary moral choice on how to solve them, quite equivalent to modern day video games with moral choice systems. You know, the kind where you're either Mother Teresa or Hitler Reincarnate? To get to the Heart, you need to be either +X or -X aligned by these encounters, and the encounters should be structured so that they alternate what is the easiest, most obvious solution, in order to protect the heart. Those who remain steadfastly good or evil may progress...

To the Heart of the Forest, and depending on how you dealt with encounters up to now, you will either encounter a Hag or a Maiden. The Maiden can be reasoned with, talked into retreating and not demolishing all of civilization. The Hag must be killed, and will be a Party Level +5 Solo accompanied by 2 Party Level +2 Elites, 5 Party Level Equivelent Standards, and an unlimited number of minions with hardness.

Of course, a final choice can be made at the end to turn from good/evil and go the other way. Self-Sacrifice will transform the Hag into the Maiden, and if you attack the Maiden, she'll become the hag.