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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ender_wiggin" data-source="post: 5952341" data-attributes="member: 21629">Here are some of the things I've done:Have a melee on the back of a massive dragon. Aerial maneuvers can push and pull the PCs around, and both sides can manipulate the creature into various actions.Have a combat entirely in free-fall.I ran a multi-stage combat against a giant starfish. The PCs fought one of its appendages first as a solo brute. When this creature reached 0 hp it represented the arm going limp. The PCs then ran up the limb towards the creature's core; this was represented as a skill challenge as the creature tried to brush them off with its other arms. Finally, they fought the creature's "core", which worked as a solo artillery.Sometimes, I have each square in the grid represent something much greater than 5 feet. 20 ft. 100 ft. A city block, perhaps, depending on how epic you want your melees to feel. In heroic tier, the players can topple statues on their foes. In paragon tier, pillars. In epic, entire buildings. Mechanically, everything is really the same. Enemies on this "epic" sized grid can represent individual combatants of a caliber comparable to PCs or hordes of lower-level foes.Having objects to interact with besides the enemies during a combat can really help. On many of my combats throughout the tiers, I've included statues or icons representing the settings deities somewhere on their battlefield. I describe the statues but don't tell the players which god they represent. If they take a minor action to pray to the correct deity, they are awarded a small mechanical benefit. As the players become more familiar with the setting's gods, I become more obscure with the statues (for example, one set was all knights with subtle differences between them, one all women, one all exotic fish people, leaving the PCs the task of teasing apart the details)I think you've got the right idea when running end-campaign encounters. Each combat set should feel grand, and unique mechanics, if done elegantly, really make the experience. The existing rulebooks don't offer a very creative toolbox in this regard, but the community has thrown out some pretty interesting stuff.</blockquote>

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