Frustrated searching (for encounters)

[dangerous jack]

I find that although it's really easy to come up with a good set of monsters, designing the map is the hardest part to push beyond the adequate stage now.

I've designed maps that I thought would be really interesting, but the cool elements never came into play. This can be because:
* the movement rates combined with starting locations make it irrelevant or too easy to avoid
* there's so much "interesting terrain" that the players feel overwhelmed with how it all interacts and resort to ranged basic attacks
* the location just doesn't offer enough mechanical benefit to be enticing
* the monsters are too easy and die before the terrain can do its thing

I'm getting better, but it's taking a lot of time and I would love to spend money on some well designed wilderness encounters. My ideal product would be something like Dungeon Delve, but for outdoor encounters. i.e. 3 linked encounters that I can insert on the way to the PCs destination.

 

[Asmor]

I find that although it's really easy to come up with a good set of monsters, designing the map is the hardest part to push beyond the adequate stage now.

I've designed maps that I thought would be really interesting, but the cool elements never came into play. This can be because:
* the movement rates combined with starting locations make it irrelevant or too easy to avoid
* there's so much "interesting terrain" that the players feel overwhelmed with how it all interacts and resort to ranged basic attacks
* the location just doesn't offer enough mechanical benefit to be enticing
* the monsters are too easy and die before the terrain can do its thing

I'm getting better, but it's taking a lot of time and I would love to spend money on some well designed wilderness encounters. My ideal product would be something like Dungeon Delve, but for outdoor encounters. i.e. 3 linked encounters that I can insert on the way to the PCs destination.

One tip I saw somewhere was to use liberal amounts of difficult terrain. It almost sounds contradictory, but it really does help to "open up" your map, since difficult terrain essentially doubles the size of the area it's in as far as movement goes..

 

[Ry]

I'm still feeling pretty frustrated. Seems like a pretty normal thing to expect would be out there. I know I could do it myself, but I'm a really busy guy and I was hoping for something I could pull off-the-shelf.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Seems like a pretty normal thing to expect would be out there.

Actually, for 4E its not a pretty normal thing to be out there. As has been said... creating encounters is much, much easier in 4E, and thus most DMs can do it themselves in a matter of minutes. So the market to buy "pre-made" encounters on their own is just not there.

The best you can do at this point is just strip out wilderness encounters from existing modules from Dragon and the like and just do the work needed to change the monsters involved (if the encounter's level does not match what you require). If you are a D&D Insider, this is now even easier with the arrival of the Monster Tools. Open the new Monster Tool, pull up each of the monsters that are listed in the encounter you took, and with one button you can change their level to match what you need. All the numbers get modified for its new level, you copy the new info to the clipboard, and you paste it to Word. Voila, your encounter is now level appropriate in a matter of five minutes. And if you can't swing five minutes to prep for your game, you're probably just better off running full modules themselves.

 

[Ry]

OK, but if it's so easy, why aren't people sharing them?

I mean, if I made up 100 wilderness encounters, with color maps and all, I'd share them, in the form of a RPGnow product, or at least a fan site.

 

[ExploderWizard]

OK, but if it's so easy, why aren't people sharing them?

I mean, if I made up 100 wilderness encounters, with color maps and all, I'd share them, in the form of a RPGnow product, or at least a fan site.

Considering the fan site policy was just recently revealed and that what you are looking for legally requires someone to jump through GSL hoops just to produce something that can be slapped together with minimal prep time, I don't think the lack of material is that suprising.

 

[Asmor]

Considering the fan site policy was just recently revealed and that what you are looking for legally requires someone to jump through GSL hoops just to produce something that can be slapped together with minimal prep time, I don't think the lack of material is that suprising.

I think you're vastly overestimating how much influence the fan site policy actually has on fan sites.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think you're vastly overestimating how much influence the fan site policy actually has on fan sites.

Then perhaps very few are bothering to share because very few are producing anything?

 

[Asmor]

Then perhaps very few are bothering to share because very few are producing anything?

That seems a lot more likely.

 

[Ry]

I have to admit I found 3e more fun to write for... thinking that when I hit something out of the park, it was something I could add to the collective gamer consciousness.