It's the end of the tier as we know it . . .

[pemerton]

It is always hard to judge this, so go with waves.

With your setup, one way to pull punches (if you're finding that you have to) is the have the factions focus on each other more.

I was going to suggest these two things also. And of course they work together - if you want more waves, then the two competing factions suddenly realise that they have more to gain by ganging up against the PCs. And then if it looks like it's getting a bit much, the factions suddenly start squabbling over the spoils that seem to be within their grasp.

I don't know how many level +3/4 encounters you've run in the past. In my experience, they sometimes can be very brutal but on other occasions can be fairly straightforward for the party. My party is a polearm control/close burst fighter, a somewhat un-optimised tanking paladin, a bow ranger who is also a hybrid cleric, a strong chaos sorcerer, and a somewhat un-optimised control wizard. They can have a hard time of it if the monsters have a lot of control and mobility in the mix, so that the PCs don't have tactical control of the situation. On the other hand, if there are large numbers of monsters some of whom are lower level than the PCs, and/or if the PCs are able to maintain tactical control through a combination of their own capacities and a lack of controllers among the enemies, then they have been known to wipe the floor with level +3 encounters. (Part of what makes the difference is their lack of healing, which makes control much more important for them, and makes recovery more difficult if the monsters get the tactical edge.)

At least with my party, a level +4 encounter that also inflicted a lot of controlling terrain on the PCs would definitely be hard going for them, especially if they'd already come through 2 encounters that were any harder than level or level -1/2.

 

[Riastlin]

To give ideas on terrain features/dynamic terrain, it would help to know what kind of setting/environment you're going to have for this encounter:
caves, lazerous pits, graveyard, church prayer room, dungeon, sewers, etc.

and also, is this environment the 'home turf' for one of your factions? if so, it should probably be some terrain feature that they are immune to or know how to work to their advantage (i.e. fire cultists that are all resistant to fire, then maybe it's a hot place, etc)

Oh you and your perfectly reasonable requests.

Anyway, the setting for the encounter is a now abandoned and corrupted Temple of Pelor. It was abandoned roughly 100 years prior when the town started to worship a Far Realm entity and the structure is now more cave-like than building (the temple was pulled beneath the ground and covered up).

The base storyline is that the bad guys are trying to free the heart of a powerful primordial who was defeated during the Dawn War, but who required 6 gods, including Pelor, to defeat. At the end, they couldn't kill him but did imprison his heart. The gods then placed 6 seals on the prison and distributed the 6 pieces of the artifact that helped defeat the primordial (the artifact pieces being the MacGuffins). The seals are now breaking and the Heart can be used to either free the primordial, or simply be used as a powerful weapon.

Some thoughts that I had for terrain/etc.:

[sblock]

• Doomcrystal(?) from DMG 2. These provide the only source of light and are perfectly spaced to just cover the area. When they are hit, they not only explode but start reducing the light in the area.
• Defiled Ground from DMG 2. (Might have this one confused). Was thinking of having 6 altars in the encounter area and the area around each altar is defiled, reducing healing surge value. Perhaps also have the altars grant a bonus to the undead faction. When the altars are cleansed (thinking a single Religion check per altar) the ground around them becomes Healing Ground instead (while also eliminating the associated benefit to the undead faction).
• Portals for third faction. They use these for reinforcement. There are four and they are spaced out. The portals can be closed to cut off reinforcements.
• Sprinkle a few energy nodes around the area given the likely length of the encounter, though this will not be a new feature for the group as they have encountered them before.

The crystals will likely be more notable for their explosive property since the party has plenty of light sources, but it will likely at least divert their attention at some point (requiring them to get the light source out, etc.). I suppose I could have an additional magical effect that suppresses light sources but that seems a tad heavy-handed to me. [/sblock]

Nothing else is really jumping out at me at the moment, and I'm also concerned about creating too many features as it could simply overly complicate the encounter. I do; however, want the party to realize that they need to do more than just swing away in order to get through the encounter.

The encounter area is not the home ground to any of the factions but the undead faction will at least have had some time to prepare for the coming fight. The other faction btw is an aberrant faction hailing from the Far Realm.

 

[Abstruse]

One thing you may want to do if you know what Paragon Path each character is going to be is print out the attack power from that path and wait until it looks like the battle's almost over or it's at a climactic point (all that's left is the solo which is bloodied, for example) and give the powers to the players to use to finish the enemy off. It represents them acknowledging the milestone they've reached and being able to access some of what they will become after the battle.

I'd like to take a slightly different approach on the terrain thing...destructible terrain. Think of the epic final fights in movies (whether the movie itself was good or bad). They almost all involve smashing stuff. Die Hard blows up the roof of the building. Temple of Doom starts off on a rickety rope bridge...then breaks the bridge so they're dangling over the ravine. Highlander starts off on the roof until they break everything up there and then they fall into the building to finish the fight inside there. X-Men trashed the Statue of Liberty. And of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they destroyed locations in almost every finale. Season 3: High school, Season 4: UNIT, oops, I mean The Initiative. Season 6: The Magic Shop. Season 7: The entire friggin' TOWN. It just feels more epic, as if the place where they're fighting just isn't enough to contain the awesome of their powers. If you make this a familiar location, it feels even more transitional because they're blowing up somewhere they've spent a lot of time.

 

[fba827]

Oh you and your perfectly reasonable requests.

Hmmm...

Given the number of enemies you'll have running around and multiple tactics (due to multiple factions) I'd limit the terrain down to 2 features. I don't have DMG2 handy so I'm making stuff up based entirely on the description you gave ... Having said that, from your list ....


Doomcrystal is great thematically but won't add much to the story of the encounter. Plus, as you said, the party already has plenty of light. So it'd just be extra bookkeeping for you and not much else....

Likewise, energy nodes would be good, especially in tieing in earlier campaign events. But the other two actually have the strongest story appeal (based on the short synopsis you gave here anyway).

So I'd go with the other two (one giving some sort of benefit to each faction) ...

THIS IS ALL OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD - I emphasize that to point out I am not giving exceptional consideration to how hard it will be to utilize (you will want to use something -simple-). But I'm sharing these (slightly complex) ideas since they could help inspire you.

[sblock]
Rubble
Randomly toss in some rumble from the decayed building and it's difficult terrain. (Easy and simple and no real tracking necessary)

Columns
Toss in one or two support columns that are impassable terrain that were once support columns to keep the chamber's ceiling up. (Easy and simple and no real tracking necessary)

Far Realm Portals
Far Realm Horror (Aura 5) * Fear. Any nonabberent creature that ends its turn in the aura is slid 4 squares and cannot end this movement in any Far Realm Horror aura.
Initiative: End of round
Far Realm Transport (At-Will). Standard Action. 1d4+2 Far Realm minions are summoned from each active portal and appear in a square adjacent to the portal. The summoned minions can take one action when summoned and then have their normal turn during the next turn. On subsequent rounds, they act on initiative just before the Far Realm portals.
Disable: When adjacent to a portal, make an Arcana check (DC medium or hard, depending on if you have multiple PCs with high arcana). After 3 successes, that one portal is disabled. A natural 19-20 on Arcana counts as an automatic 3 successes for that portal.


Note 1: You may want to adjust the number of summoned minions depending on the number of portals you finally decide to use.

Note 2: The aura may seem unnecessary, but you'll want -something- there or else you'll have a PC that camps by the portal and just keeps using readied actions to blast the minions as they come through with no real effort. So this will be lots of running up trying to disable it then seeing something inside that scares them away for a moment.

Note 3: the summoned minions should get that one action when summoned as way to help spread them out but don't just move them to the side of the PCs expecting to hit them next turn since the PCs would go next and just kill the minions before they did anything.

Note 4: To cut down on tracking, if your undead faction is immune to fear, you won't have to worry about them getting caught in the aura.


Defiled Altar 6 altars in the chamber that emanate with a feeling of dread and glow like a black light, casting eerie illumination in the room
Black Light: Sheds dim light up to 10 squares
Life to Death (Aura 10): Undead creatures gain +1 attack and resist 5 while in the aura. Multiple auras stack.
Death to Life (Aura 10): Creatures without the undead type take -2 penalty to saves and -5 penalty to surge value while within the aura. Multiple auras stack.
DisableTwo successful religion checks (DC medium or hard?) changes the Defiled Altar into a Sacred Altar (see below).
Counter Disable When a defiled altar has only one (of two) successful disables, one (specific) person from the undead faction can use a standard action religion check (DC ?maybe set by the success) to undo the success, resetting it back to 0.

Note 1: Yes, I know, multiple auras don't normally stack. Which is why I put them in as an exception to emphasize that this place is harder because there are so many of them.

Note 2: I used 10 squares for the auras. However, if it's a smaller chamber, you may want to reduce it to 5 squares. OR if you have more altars then likeiwse reduce it to aura 5. but, ideally, there will be areas where 1 2 or 3 auras can stack. But 1 aura should be frequent enough with 2 and 3 stacking auras being less frequent. and no more than 3 auras stacking in any given square unless you wanted to really make it hard.

Note 3: You can drop the counter disable thing if it would be too much tracking. I just thought since the undead faction had time to prepare they might have knowledge about the defiled altars and know how to 'repair' them. Alternatively, drop this idea from the altar and instead use it on the portal ?


Sacred Altar The defiled altar seems to crackle with light until it bursts with radiance like a miniature sun
Pelor's Light: Sheds bright light up to 10 squares
Undead Bane (Aura 10): Undead creatures take -1 to attacks, defenses, and saves while in the aura. Multiple auras stack (Or if you think that is going to be too much to track "Undead in the aura gain vulnerable 2 per undead bane aura that they are in")
Pelor's Blessing (Aura 10): Creatures without the undead type gain 5 temporary hit points per Pelor's Blessing aura that they are in at the start of their turn.

[/sblock]

It's a lot less verbose when you trim out all my rambling notes in between. But it might still be a lot to track. So trim it down however you want, I just put in off-the-top of my head ideas for inspiration. Maybe go so far as to make Defiled Altar and Scared Altar exact opposites of one another so that you know if someone is in one of each, they would cancel each other out, thus, less to track.

Anyway, hope it helps (even if just for inspiration).

 

[Riastlin]

Anyway, hope it helps (even if just for inspiration).

That's awesome actually. What I like about this is that it starts the encounter off really difficult, but potentially makes the encounter fairly easy by the end if the PCs decide to "attack" the altars. It not only encourages them to think beyond a mere "swing away" approach, but actively rewards them for doing so.

And I agree with the idea of limiting the terrain features while making them dynamic. There will be plenty of bookkeeping already so that's definitely a good idea. I will likely tweak your idea somewhat, but I think its definitely a great starting point.

 

[Colmarr]

I'm in the same place you are!

It's worth noting that the transition shouldn't necessarily be marked by a hard battle, it should be marked by a cool battle that has important things at stake. Consider using dynamic terrain, waves of baddies, and unusual/memorable scenery to mark the occasion.

IMO, what is most important for the transition is a change in PC status; that they go from being "the guys some people know about" to "the guys who saved the city and everyone knows".

The cool encounter is the cherry on the icing on the cake.

The LFR necromancer trilogy (beginning with H3 WATE 1-3 "The woolmen's restless tomb") is a good example. By the end of the trilogy, the PCs have experienced:

1. A planar tomb
2. Machinations of the Masked Lords of Waterdeep
3. Recovery of a priceless lost treasure (the schematics for Old Timehands)
4. A costume ball where ghouls emerged from the decorations
5. Diving on a sunken wreck in the middle of a sea wraith swarm
6. Mutilated ghosts that possess others in order to communicate
7. Duplicitous guilds that may or may not be trustworthy
8. A dude with sores that weep blue fire
9. The son of the Open Lord, who seems to be trustworthy, but look what his daddy's buddies get up to; and
10. A city buried in the Underdark beneath Waterdeep

That's a hell of a way of saying "you're someone, now".

 

[Piratecat]

IMO, what is most important for the transition is a change in PC status; that they go from being "the guys some people know about" to "the guys who saved the city and everyone knows".

That's a fantastic point.

The best reward I gave my group is one that wasn't even treasure. After they defeated a hated tiefling mercenary army against ludicrous odds, I declared that they are now known as the Heroes of Crescent Keep, and any time they go into a non-tiefling bar and mention it the bar patrons will buy them drinks for free. They love this.

 

[jbear]

One thing to keep in mind with having PCs walk into a fight between two factions:

This happened to a group I was playing with and we very nearly sat on the sidelines until they had finished their battle. Both sides were undead and at that stage we had no indication that one side was 'good'. The only motivation we had to join the fight was our paladin who decided to barrell into the middle of things. Many of our PCs are not the 'jump into battle for the hell of it' kind.

As we took sides it was 2 vs 1 and wasn't a challenging fight at all.

You mentioned they would be teleporting in, which I guess puts them in the middle of things, but you may find that avoiding the combat is a valid tactic for your players, unless their is a valid motivation for them to join in.

I guess that is the 'thing' that piratecat is talking about, something that makes success important to the group, something that raises the stakes and ensures they have a vested interest in engaging with the situation.

Okay, so if I understand right, both sides want Pelor's heart? Undead is one faction. Not many are going to side with undead. But what's the other faction? I imagine a similarly disagreeable group, right? Otherwise the PCs could just side with them.

I guess being fairly explicit about the danger/consquences of delaying or remaining on the sidelines to avoid such thinking. And maybe have some 'Lose/Failure/Major Set Back' conditions set where one side or other can viably achieve success if the PCs don't intervene.

The Portals from the Far Realm suggested in pg1 seem like a really cool idea. So if the Aberrant creatures manage to finally break the seals and get to the heart and get it to a working portal they win. The Undead don't seem to have such an obvious goal. What interest do these undead have in the Primordial creature? What kind of force is controlling/organising them? Where did these undead arrive from? Maybe answering some of these questions would give the factions clear goals, win conditions and motivations for their actions during the battle.

 

[Pbartender]

Recently, we finished up the Heroic Tier of Scales of War. For the climactic fight between the PCs and the general of the enemy army -- which marked the transition to Paragon Tier -- I changed things up a bit from the published adventure.

The fight took place in the midst of a city that was on fire and being bombarded by siege engines.

The general was a Level 14 Elite Soldier. His undead dragon "mount" was a Level 13 Elite Brute. I modified both of them according the guidelines and suggestions put forth in the Angry DM blog with regards to D&D Boss Fights.

In addition, there were oodles of low-level minions running around (and continually being reinforced) -- orcs, ogres, drow, spiderlings, and such. The PCs each also had control over a half dozen to a dozen of their own allied minions -- dwarven crossbowmen, elven hunters, prototype warforged, town militia, etc.

It was great... A huge, sprawling, epic fight, that didn't devolve into drudgery thanks to the evolving nature of the two Boss' powers and tactics. The opposing minions more or less canceled each other out, but brought an interesting twist to the combat. The two modified elites were just tough enough to make the PCs worried (with his dying breath, the general tried to coup de gras and kill an unconscious hero, but failed), but good tactics and teamwork allowed them to succeed heroically.

Certainly, one of our best and most memorable 4E combats.

 

[Piratecat]

I modified both of them according the guidelines and suggestions put forth in the Angry DM blog with regards to D&D Boss Fights.

Yoink! Thank you. Great stuff.

(By the way, it's OT, but a scientist friend told me that your particle accelerator was shutting down. I wanted to offer my sympathies.)