Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 5466804" data-attributes="member: 63">You're in a rush. Maybe you don't have a ton of warriors at your disposal, so you try to draw your enemies into a weak position.If they have some clue to the PCs' comings and goings, the villains could predict with a few minutes lead time when they're going to teleport back. At that moment they strike with magic (fireballs, a dragon, a ritual, whatever fits your villain group) to set the castle aflame. They appear to flee, but actually they hide and wait for the party to split up and start directing the firefighting efforts. Then they strike at one isolated PC. The way you run this in order to make it fun is to start the session with a skill challenge, to help organize the fire-fighting efforts. Set up 5 sections of the castle, and make it clear that if no one is coordinating the firefighting efforts, parts of the castle will get burnt down. Ask who goes to lead which section of the firefighting, and have five separate skill challenges - one per PC. After the first five minutes, the bad guys strike. You want to come up with a group of monsters who completely and totally lack controller elements, because you do not in any way want to impede running. Then you pick the PC most likely to run when he's outnumbered. They attack him.Treat it like an ambush -- perception checks and such -- and once combat starts, have the one player handle his own PC, while the other players each get 2 to 4 low-level minions. Their purpose here is to die horribly, but maybe chip some damage off the bad guys. I suggest you use brutes that can hit multiple melee targets at once, to make it clear that the PC is outmatched. If he gets at least 12 squares from all the monsters, he gets away and can get to one of his allies (which should take about 3 rounds or so).Then you describe that the monsters are chasing and will be there soon. Give the players a few rounds to either set up defenses (players A & B, plus 2 to 4 minions for the other players), or run and get more reinforcements. If you've got 5 PCs, the smart move is probably for A to get B, B and A split up and get C and D, and then all four of them converge at E.Eventually the tide will turn (and if the players decide not to run and get their allies, other castle folks can alert them to the monsters, so they can join the fight as soon as their minions are dead). And hopefully combat won't have taken so long that the castle burns down around them.</blockquote>

Verification