1001 Cool Combat Locations

[Kerrwyn]

127. During the razing of a city. Where there's smoke, there's fire.
128. Inside a gladitorial style arena, only most of it has crumbled into ruins, leaving masses of rubble to provide cover, dust clouds for concealment, rocks for throwing and plenty of hiding places.
129. In subway tunnels. Electrical railings, innocent passengers, and... hey, what's that light?
130. In the back of a semi, with a driver with a really bad Drive skill. Doing 80 on the interstate. Be even more interesting depending on what the semi was shipping.
131. On a narrow ledge over some deep water. Not necessarily deadly, but fall and you're out of combat for a while.
132. Inside a skyscraper with faulty wiring that's going haywire. (Think the Metallica video "I Disappear")
133. At night, during a meteor shower that's coming down right where you are.
134. In an opera house, above the stage in the rafters. Trying to avoid the patrons noticing you. Ropes, sandbags, curtains. (Oh, come on. Don't tell me no one thought of this one already?!)
135. On top of the mad genius' castle with the Flesh Golem in a lightning storm.
136. In a really old Victorian style house. With the cupola and everything. Rotted wood, cobwebs, dilapidated staircases, broken glass. Don't get bull rushed too far or you might end up going through the walls.
137. In a seaside lagoon, with coral beds, kelp and a few select high cliffs. The fight starts on the land, but quickly could end up in the water.
138. In Grand Canyon-like place. Cliffs, rubble, and a rushing river right below.
139. In corn (wheat) field. Where the stalks are just high enough to block vision. Gotta use sounds to manuever the battlefield.
140. In the middle of a monsoon in the desert. Make sure there are places the combatants can climb, so they can get struck by lightning easily.
Whew. That's it for me for now.

*Edit- My posts would make more sense if I knew what I was doing when it came to typing.

 

[Kilmore]

141. In a mine field.
142. In a dwarven brewery.
143. A movie classic: on a speeding train.
144. In a wind tunnel (Operation Condor)
145. Springing from the backs of other monks in mid-air to do battle with the windwalking enemy cult master.

 

[Kilmore]

146. In here. http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/855433.asp

 

[Kerrwyn]

147. In the middle of a heavy metal concert. Preferably just a fistfight.
148. In a minefield. 'Nuff said.
149. In a steamy jungle with vines (snakes) hanging everywhere.
150. In a giant ancient redwood tree. Climbing, falling, jumping, getting smacked in the face with branches for subdual damage.
151. In the vein of 146: In a solar mirror field. Reflected sunlight could force a Reflex save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds.
152. Jackie Chan-style: In a locker room.

 

[barsoomcore]

Great, great!

An observation:

A fun combat location is one in which there are consequences for actions besides hitting or missing your opponent. Hence balance checks, swim checks, yada yada yada.

If the outcome of failing those checks is certain death or irrevocable removal from the scene, however, it's less fun because the failure will only happen at most once per character. Although the check has a huge effect on the character, it has a very small effect on the combat. "Whoops, Fred's dead."

Truly KAH-HOOL locations have consequences that are non-fatal but still significant, so that characters are often missing the check and suffering a consequence, but still able to influence play, and possibly return to the field of battle.

Let's get KAH-HOOL!

 

[Zaruthustran]

148. In an alchemist's shop. Misses, bull rushes, trips, grapples, and missile fire have a chance of smashing a random glass container. Container could be as mundane as salt water or as crazy as acid, alchemist fire, healing potion, Enlarge potion, Sovereign Glue, or whatever.

149. In an ancient, partially flooded temple of a water god. Water is old and skummy, and thus opaque. Being opaque, the normally 2' depth of water looks exactly the same as 10' deep water. Scatter a few canals throughout the temple (in ancient times, the priests would float througout the massed congregation) and watch as combatants suddenly plunge into deep water as they charge/manouver. Remember that Sleep spells and getting dropped below 0 hit points = quick death by drowning.

150. Within a clockwork factory. Spinning gears and multiple levels make plenty of opportunity for damaging bull rushes.

151. In a pitched battle. Random missile fire, and plenty of 1st level Warriors (from both sides) swirling around.

152. In an ice cave. Slippery footing + sloped floors = mayhem. Plus, loud noises (some spells, shouting, weapons impacting plate armor) can cause ice stalagtites to plummet to the ground.

153. On chariots. Ben hur!

-z

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Are people even reading other entries?

SD

 

[barsoomcore]

Are people even reading other entries?

Don't bother us with details! We're being cool!

Ah, heck, one of the keys to successful brainstorming is to not edit ANYTHING. We can weed out the duplicates once we have a big list of ideas. theRuinedOne says he's putting together a compiled list. I'll be happy to host it on Barsoom once it's all ready -- or some other location might be more appropriate...

 

[blargney]

Truly KAH-HOOL locations have consequences that are non-fatal but still significant, so that characters are often missing the check and suffering a consequence, but still able to influence play, and possibly return to the field of battle.

That's an excellent observation, barsoomcore!

Here are a couple of ideas:

153) In a room drenched with Negative Energy. Fortitiude save every round or lose a level.

154) In a librarynth. (Mis-spelling intentional.) Bookshelves are arranged haphazardly, creating a maze. Both sets of combatants are looking for a book, and time is short - fighting is strongly discouraged. Require Knowledge checks to guess whether a given book might be related to what they're looking for.

155) On a long conveyor belt of rollers. Balance check every round or be off-balance for the round. Penalties to attack, damage, AC, Reflex saves, and against trip attempts.

156) In a pie factory with animated cream pies.

157) In a room with laughing gas. Fortitude save or be affected by Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Make sure you make the players roleplay the effects... if someone else starts laughing, their character succumbs as well

158) In a child's bedroom. At night. With a sleeping child. Make sure they don't have shoes on. Insert Lego in foot.

159) In a drow orgy room. They are burning an aphrodisiac incense. Will save every round or strip one article of clothing. Men get appropriate circumstance penalties.

-blarg

 

[jmucchiello]

63. A maze made out of walls of force. Fun with invisible walls baby!

This was the end battle to the Tree of Knowleedge until I had it pointed out how annnoying it was to follow the action by one of the playtesters.

If you want another good setup, goto my freestuff page and download the Thieves Den Tuesday's Two-Pager. The rogues are against you and so is the floor.