Splitting the party in combat

[SteveC]

So I'm playing in this 4E game where the GM has done some interesting things to change up the standard assumptions for the system. The last thing he did was string several combats together without a short rest, which made for an extremely challenging battle.

This time he split the party up and ran a combat with each of the different groups at the same time. Actually, it was more our fault, since we were the ones who split up.

The group is in a city, and we are in the process of crashing an elaborate party. Our group wasn't expecting a fight, so we split ourselves up: I and a couple of other somewhat presentable characters went early, to set things up for another member of the group who is a noble, and intended to show up fashionably late, in the company of a couple of lovely NPCs.

Our group also has a dwarf and half orc in it, who would not fit in with the social scene for the party, so we had them go to a nearby tavern and wait for us to leave the party. After the party there is a big religious ceremony that we believe has a connection to the far realms, but is also open to the public (the better to find victims to eat, we believe). We planned to meet up afterwards for what we believed to be the big challenge.

So we're in three different groups, and the GM set up three different battle grids and jumped all of us at once, even though we were in three different places.

He let me know that he purchased a standard encounter's worth of monsters, and split them between our three groups, with the intention of seeing how we would react to not having some of our standard party tactics available to us.

The result has been a great combat: very challenging, and very different from what we see in a traditional battle. And, of course, we really have no one to blame but ourselves for the extra difficulty.

I thought I'd post about it to suggest it for GMs who want to try something a little different, and also to see if other groups had done something like it.

Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions on a highly unusual combat to run for the next battle, well let me know about them so I can pass that on...

 

[domino]

What about something on a constantly moving ground? Every round everyone moves 2-3 squares in one direction, and if they don't move to avoid hazards, immovable rocks, or whatever, they can get stuck, or fall off the edge, or other terrible things.

 

[Mummolus]

What about something on a constantly moving ground? Every round everyone moves 2-3 squares in one direction, and if they don't move to avoid hazards, immovable rocks, or whatever, they can get stuck, or fall off the edge, or other terrible things.

I did this with a sandtrap in my Dark Sun campaign - the group was fighting some wraiths (MV, not the boring old ones) who hovered and so weren't affected. Kept things very interesting.

One of the things I've tried recently that I think went over pretty well was a pillared hall - I had pillars on each corner of the squares in what was otherwise a large open area. Prevented diagonal movement, provided partial cover, penalized ranged attacks that weren't in a straight line. To compensate I had side-to-side movement not provoke opportunity attacks. Set the group up against some oozes with a climb speed who used the pillars to make hit-and-run attacks and it ended up being a lot of fun for all of us.

 

[chitzk0i]

The result has been a great combat: very challenging, and very different from what we see in a traditional battle. And, of course, we really have no one to blame but ourselves for the extra difficulty.

The way I see it, the party made a reasonable plan to engage a social situation and got a harder fight because of it. I can understand the enemy seeing a perfect time to strike, but I would be hesitant to punish this plan. Next time the players consider splitting up for a well-roleplayed plan, will they think twice because they got ambushed last time? It sounds like your party has some good roleplaying and good teamwork going on. I'd hate to see them feel the need to travel in a tight clump for the rest of the campaign to defend against ambushes.

 

[Riastlin]

The way I see it, the party made a reasonable plan to engage a social situation and got a harder fight because of it. I can understand the enemy seeing a perfect time to strike, but I would be hesitant to punish this plan. Next time the players consider splitting up for a well-roleplayed plan, will they think twice because they got ambushed last time? It sounds like your party has some good roleplaying and good teamwork going on. I'd hate to see them feel the need to travel in a tight clump for the rest of the campaign to defend against ambushes.

Aye, I definitely see the potential for ticking the party off here. That being said, if it doesn't happen often AND the players are having fun then so much the better.

Anyhoo, I had planned to do something a tad similar soon in my campaign. I'm stealing this idea from a recent Dungeon article about the city overrun with undead and the lord who appears to be in cahoots with an evil entity (can't for the life of me remember the name though -- was just a few months ago). Anyhoo, the idea is that the battle with the lord is a lot easier if there is a bright light (read lighthouse) shining on the lord's room in the keep (where an artifact is controlling/helping the lord). Only problem is that the undead swarm the lighthouse anytime the light is on and none of the townspeople will operate the light. So, the party will have the choice of leaving one or two behind to fight off the horde of undead minions (though they might not know they are minions right ahead of time) while the rest of the party takes on the lord. The key to this is that its the party's choice to do this. The battle is still doable without using the lighthouse, but is a lot more difficult.

As for other ideas, I also am planning to have a battle on a raging river (probably of lava given the party is now paragon level). To make matters more interesting, the river is swiftly moving the party toward a water/lavafall which would be not-so-good for the party were they to tumble over.

 

[TerraDave]

We had a combat on a ship. It started as the party had split up to investigate some strange goings on. They were right to be suspicious! When the dopplegangers who had replaced the crew attacked, they were on three different decks, so it ran like a series of semi-connected fights. Plus, the dopplegangers were allied with a pirate ghost (or is it ghost pirate?) that could float in between the decks. And at the top, you could of course get knocked into the sea on the top deck.

Fun stuff.

 

[SteveC]

The way I see it, the party made a reasonable plan to engage a social situation and got a harder fight because of it. I can understand the enemy seeing a perfect time to strike, but I would be hesitant to punish this plan. Next time the players consider splitting up for a well-roleplayed plan, will they think twice because they got ambushed last time? It sounds like your party has some good roleplaying and good teamwork going on. I'd hate to see them feel the need to travel in a tight clump for the rest of the campaign to defend against ambushes.

That's a good point, but that's not our group: we're going to keep doing what makes sense at the time (and this game had a couple of sessions with no combat at all, pure social info gathering and roleplaying) so we had no reason to think our group was about to be attacked quite yet.

I always think that a GM can kill the group off at any point they wish, so I'm willing to go along with things to keep the game more fun and challenging.

Now we're running up against a bunch or murderers (level 9 brutes) and we're level 12, so there's not too much to worry about. Well, the sword mage|warlord who's all by himself (he was escorting NPCs) is more than a little worried, but I'm sure he'll come through fine.

 

[SteveC]

We had a combat on a ship. It started as the party had split up to investigate some strange goings on. They were right to be suspicious! When the dopplegangers who had replaced the crew attacked, they were on three different decks, so it ran like a series of semi-connected fights. Plus, the dopplegangers were allied with a pirate ghost (or is it ghost pirate?) that could float in between the decks. And at the top, you could of course get knocked into the sea on the top deck.

Fun stuff.

That sounds great. One of the things that surprises me is given how well 4E supports these kind of dynamic battles, how few GMs seem to want to use them.

 

[Riastlin]

That sounds great. One of the things that surprises me is given how well 4E supports these kind of dynamic battles, how few GMs seem to want to use them.

Personally, I think there's a couple of issues at work. The first (and likely the biggest) is just a matter of DMs wrapping their heads around the idea. 4e definitely provides a lot more flexibility in this regard than earlier editions did. After all, in earlier editions, most monsters were similar to the 4e solo (i.e. one monster of the party's level was considered a standard encounter). So the idea of having these ranging, dynamic battles over multiple decks of a ship, or multiple floors of a tower, etc. is something new and if you've been doing it differently for 10+ years, it takes a while to get used to it.

Second, don't forget the earlier slogan "Don't split the party!" Sure, that was a slogan directed at the players, but DMs have often joked about splitting the party, knowing that the whole of the party is greater than the sum of its parts. So there's the natural tendency to an extent to not go out of our way to screw with (or over) the party.

Finally, there's the issue of metagaming. Metagaming can't really be completely avoided no matter how hard we try. However, one thing I've always noticed is that whenever I tell the players to place their minis for instance, they always end up within a few squares of each other, regardless of how the narrative has been going. If Bob said he was checking out the room down the hall, Ted says "well I wouldn't have let him go alone", etc. Sure, from time to time if need be a DM can put his or her foot down, but more often than not, this is going to lead to arguments at the table which immediately ends the fun for everyone.

All that being said, I am definitely interested in hearing ideas about dynamic encounters like these. It is certainly something I'm trying to add to my game to get away from the typical "formation fighting" that so many combats devolve into. Additionally, I think 4e really lends itself well to alternative combat goals as well, which can really help with the dynamics a bit. In an upcoming session, I have the PCs trying to get the city gates opened so that the resistance army can get into the city. I have a battle with plenty of enemies planned for that encounter, but the real goal of the encounter is simply to get the gates open. Once that is accomplished, the resistance will quickly push through the gates and the party can move on. The fight will be much harder if the party just tries to stand and kill all the enemies first.

This to me is the true advantage of 4ed in terms of combat. There are so many different ways to enable the players to think outside the box in order to get around obstacles, and part of that, I think, has to do with the increased numbers in the combat (or the fact that you can have both a major trap and monsters that are a significant threat in the same encounter, etc.). When I play (as opposed to DMing) I am very much the curious sort "Can I jump up here, or what if I cut the cable to the chandelier, etc.", and to me its that impromptu stuff that keeps the game fun so I'm always looking for ways to get my players to do the same.

Now the cool thing about the ship battle that was described is that it in particular allows certain characters to really shine. The elven avenger with all kinds of movement options can quickly reinforce some allies, while the wizard with a bunch of forced movement options can simply push others into the water. Hopefully the party quickly realizes that its not just about dropping all the monsters to 0.

 

[Stumblewyk]

I intend to do this as the capstone encounter for our first upcoming Dark Sun campaign session.

The party is starting off as slaves sentenced to (or living in) the gladiator pits of Nibenay for a various assortment of reasons. The first encounter will be a means to introduce them to each other, and then last (large) encounter will be each party member split up around the arena with other mooks in a grand melee. They'll have to fight their way through minions (and lower level regular humanoids) on their own to reach the center of the arena (and the rest of their allies/rivals) to kill off a bloodied solo creature. My goal is to have them whittled down by the time they reach the solo (hopefully at different times) and then have them come together to take down what will likely be a captive, and very irate, tembo.

We'll see how it goes. It's going to be crazy, with LOTS of minions who will be attacking each other as well as the PCs, so all-in-all, it should be an encounter +2 worth of XP monsters after some of the minions are killed off by their contemporaries. I have a good feeling about it.