Best Stirge Encounter?

[Nikroecyst]

I have never come across any powerful or difficult stirge encounters but I agree with takyris.

Only I would use a swamp to slow pc's speed. Use a water elemental, or somekind of tree monster (like a living tree thinking its proctecting its self) and a small swarm of stirges.

Slow thier speed to make thier escape difficult and to make charging the big tree niy impossible, use the stirges to come outta the tree and go after what they percieve as the easyest targets (prolly rouges and spellcasters), and then follow it up with the drowning rule when the big tree pins a pc in 2 ft of water, or when thier ability scores get too low for them to stand.

At first it seems easy to get around but thats the power of the encounter. You can always spice it up by being a ratbastard.

I'll be watching this post for a better stirge encounter. Now that you mention it, most players see stirges and get overconfident, like when they see kobolds. You can use that to your advantage and I will be on the look out for a good stirge encounter as well.

 

[wakedown]

Off the top of my head I can remember 3 stirge encounters that our group has seen that are in printed modules.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Dungeon Magazine #15 - Roarwater Caves
The party had just spotted the army of kobolds heading towards the xvart lair, and remembering a sealed tunnel that led to stirges, back-tracks to that chamber just as the kobolds begin an epic battle with bugbears and xvarts in a huge underground chamber. The party members all hide under several blankets (pulling some xvart babies with them) while the barbarian tears through the barricade and does everything in his power to piss the stirges off, sending a swarm of them to join the fray -- the party grins ear to ear as they hear the shouts of kobolds, xvarts and bugbears become even more frentic when they are joined by another faction


Dungeon Magazine #114 - Mad God's Key
I remember the party hexblade/rogue was wandering off on his own exploring and opened a locked door in the stables, discovering 3 stirges beyond. His character only had a 10 con, and all 3 stirges hit, and between the 3 of them drained exactly 10 con. Since this encounter, stirges have become feared in our group.


Forge of Fury
The party wizard brazenly enters a dark underground chamber, and tossing up his staff calls forth a light spell. Once the chamber is illuminated, a half dozen stirges are awoken and swarm the light source and the wizard who tosses it aside and runs fleeing from the room fearing the Con drain attack, but not before a couple grapple onto him.


There may be more stirge encounters, but for these 3 parties they became FEARED. Hope this recap helps...

 

[Rothe]

I also like to use them in combination with other creatures. My favorite is the piercer with whom they form a symbiotic relationship. The stirge fix a victim in place and distract them so the piercer has a better chance to hit.

 

[Kunimatyu]

How about a Stirge encounter with a musk-producing beast of some kind?

The stirges don't bother the beast(the musk keeps them away), nor do they bother PCs adjacent to the beast. The players can choose between being adjacent to the nasty beast or presenting a nice target for the Stirges. If a player picks up on the fact that the musk is keeping the stirges at bay, it can open the door for some creative PC tactics.

 

[Rothe]

How about a Stirge encounter with a musk-producing beast of some kind?

The stirges don't bother the beast(the musk keeps them away), nor do they bother PCs adjacent to the beast. The players can choose between being adjacent to the nasty beast or presenting a nice target for the Stirges. If a player picks up on the fact that the musk is keeping the stirges at bay, it can open the door for some creative PC tactics.

The bottleing and selling of Stirge repellent? Get your Stirge repellent here, come get it while it stinks.

 

[Xyanthon]

I also like to use them in combination with other creatures. My favorite is the piercer with whom they form a symbiotic relationship. The stirge fix a victim in place and distract them so the piercer has a better chance to hit.

Heh, I recall an encounter from when I first started playing in the 1e days. My Fighter/Illusionist gnome was attacked by some stirges and finished off by a piercer. I think to add insult to injury, the DM had a gray ooze or black pudding come and eat his corpse. Heh, well we were like 10 or 11 at the time and of course at that age, the DMs feel the need to be adversarial to the players. Thus ended the very short adventuring career of my first PC: Ironhawke the Magnificent (yes hawk with an e - it was pretty cool to me back then). I think that the DM in his glee then went on to describe the stirges lapping up the rest of the blood stains off the cavern floor and had a gellatinous cube come by and suck up whatever equipment the ooze left behind. Talk about overkill...

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Off the top of my head I can remember 3 stirge encounters that our group has seen that are in printed modules.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Dungeon Magazine #15 - Roarwater Caves
The party had just spotted the army of kobolds heading towards the xvart lair, and remembering a sealed tunnel that led to stirges, back-tracks to that chamber just as the kobolds begin an epic battle with bugbears and xvarts in a huge underground chamber. The party members all hide under several blankets (pulling some xvart babies with them) while the barbarian tears through the barricade and does everything in his power to piss the stirges off, sending a swarm of them to join the fray -- the party grins ear to ear as they hear the shouts of kobolds, xvarts and bugbears become even more frentic when they are joined by another faction


Dungeon Magazine #114 - Mad God's Key
I remember the party hexblade/rogue was wandering off on his own exploring and opened a locked door in the stables, discovering 3 stirges beyond. His character only had a 10 con, and all 3 stirges hit, and between the 3 of them drained exactly 10 con. Since this encounter, stirges have become feared in our group.


Forge of Fury
The party wizard brazenly enters a dark underground chamber, and tossing up his staff calls forth a light spell. Once the chamber is illuminated, a half dozen stirges are awoken and swarm the light source and the wizard who tosses it aside and runs fleeing from the room fearing the Con drain attack, but not before a couple grapple onto him.


There may be more stirge encounters, but for these 3 parties they became FEARED. Hope this recap helps...

The first one, the one from Dungeon #15 sounds pretty memorable to me. I can imagine that the players would have been quite pleased with themselves after that combat.

I like it when adventures have combats aren't always about 1 group of monsters going after the PC's. Some monsters should have other enemies too.

Olaf the Stout