TaranTheWanderer
Legend
In the RPG Torg it is fairly common encounter design to combine combat with some sort of skill-check related ultimate goal.
For example....the players enter the room with the evil mastermind and his minions just as they hit the self destruct button and begin to fire up the escape copter. Knowing that they will be blown to bits if they don't shut down the self destruct sequence, the players will need to start working on shutting that down. At the same time the minions are attacking the players in combat so some of the party has to protect the person disabling the self-destruct by engaging and taking out the minions. Optionally if they have enough resources or a good enough plan they can even dispatch another party member to pursue the evil mastermind up to the roof to try to prevent him from hopping on the escape copter.
In this example there is not a combat of 4 PCs vs. 16 henchmen and 1 mastermind to the death. There are multiple interacting moving parts that all contribute to a dynamic and exciting battle with the disabling of the self destruct the PRIMARY goal, and capture of the mastermind the SECONDARY goal. The killing (or not) of the henchmen is inconsequential to the scene.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's a stop-the-ritual-before-it's-too-late sequence - to put it in D&D terms. It's hard to do that with every encounter, though. What techniques do you use, in general, to create more intensity without it always feeling like the same combination?
Edit: thanks @iserith