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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ender_wiggin" data-source="post: 5952504" data-attributes="member: 21629">Mechanics of fighting on a very large flying creature:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I split up the creature into zones: (1) each wing was a large zone (~5x10 squares), (2) the back/neck (2x6), (3) the tail (1x12), and (4) multiple griffins that were flying somewhere alongside the dragon (1x1).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each zone had separate terrain properties that could be utilized. It's important, especially in epic tier, that zones don't "force" players to roll more dice each round. Combat is slow enough as it is, and dumb rolls to "not fall off the beast" slow things down. Your characters are epic tier. They can hang on if they want to because they're badass enough.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Every round, the flapping wings and tail pushed characters towards the edge (no roll). The neck could be utilized to aim the creature's breath weapon at a griffin (some sort of skill check as a standard action).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When I ran this combat, the players all had griffins that would automatically catch them should they fall off (note that there's no roll necessary). I also let the players jump onto the griffins if they wanted to without a roll. In addition, there were more griffins that carried minion enemies. Some of the players chose to leap onto those and wrestle the riders off (some kind of skill check). The tactical depth of this encounter is that it is advantageous to be on a griffin shooting at helpless melee enemies on the dragon -- however, controlling the dragon's back allows one to use the dragon to shoot deadly stuff at the griffins.</li> </ul>Other thoughts:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There's more encounters like this that I've run. I can share the mechanics if there's interest.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">My philosophy when it comes to creating special mechanics like this is as follows. I first ask: in what way does my idea make the players think? The basis of D&D combat imho, and all wargaming combat including chess, checkers, etc, is that it rewards people for thinking tactically. One mire of 4E epic tier as written is that it becomes much more about what's on your character sheet than what's actually going on in the battlefield. The point of any unique terrain or mechanic is to add tactical depth to the encounter, to create a reward system for thinking. So I ask myself: what does this add?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The second thing I ask is: how am I going to do this without increasing the length or complexity of any player's turn? Mechanics that force a roll are bad, because that takes more time. Mechanics that hamper player damage output or movement without giving them a way of mitigating that are bad, because it increases the total number of rounds combat takes. It's good to have a mechanic where there is a clearly dominant strategy on the field, but the player must use what's on his character intelligently sheet to execute that strategy. Avoid situations where you're just giving the player something another at-will or encounter power because epic-tier is already bloated with options.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The third and final thing I ask myself is: is there narrative justification for this mechanic? A few years ago, I was very abstraction-friendly. My thinking was to that if I completely divorced mechanics and narration, I could have awesomely cool mechanics and narrate it however I wanted. A fighter on paper could be a wizard if I described him that way. Etc etc. I pulled monsters from the monster manual and reskinned them on the fly. Turns out that there is a pitfall to that. When my in-game casters turned out to have a melee 4 attack (b/c on paper they were chain fighters or something), the players didn't like that. They didn't understand why the caster had a melee 4 attack, even if it was mechanically balanced and tactically deep. Abstraction is a powerful tool, but mechanics are only "cool" if they make sense. Create awesome mechanics off the back of interesting and unusual creatures or terrain.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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