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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5840836" data-attributes="member: 150">Had a third session yesterday, using the poker rules for a couple of encounters.  This time, in the first encounter, the PCs started out skirmishing with a band of undead around a ruined building.  A few rounds in, some Drow (including a named Elite(face card) had been drawn to the sounds of combat, and the encounter ended up testing them pretty seriously -- At one point they seriously debated running for it, and they did at least decide to settle for a single pair (rather than draw new cards and risk making the fight even worse).  They managed to turn things around thanks to a few crits and other lucky moments, but it was touch and go.  The second encounter found them ordered to defend an intact building, where they were attacked by Drow again -- this time the fight was actually much better in hand when reinforcements arrived and ended the encounter fairly abruptly.  I don't think I'll use this specific set of ideas again, unless I wind up in a similar situation, but we did have a good time with it.  I liked the idea of giving the PCs a way to double down on an encounter in this way. I grew to really appreciate the complication "hearts" draw that automatically ends the encounter (the arrival of elven reinforcements). It gives the PCs an automatic "win" on the encounter (which entitles them to whatever their hand of cards is worth), but it also cuts short their ability to draw til the have a great hand.  That's about a wash, but the experience of taking a battle -- which was probably in a fairly exciting stage (hadn't reached the slow slide towards defeat) -- and just ending it and starting up the next one -- was pretty cool.  Another lesson I learned in the process of running these encounters: pitting the PCs against opponents that are perhaps a little lower level than they are can be good fun for everyone.  My opening encounters were usually set to be Party Level - 1, so yesterday when the party was 9th level, they faced a level 8 encounter to start. I built that with level 8 monsters. Those two lessons (lower level opponents and alternative ends to encounters) are going to be big parts of encounter planning for me going forward, I think. Anyway... let me know if you decide to give a variation on this a try. -rg</blockquote>

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