Combat on the Run

[Saagael]

Another combat design thread, so I hope no one is getting tired of those yet.

Here's the scene:

Players break out of their prison and are running through the tower trying to catch the villain, all the while being chased by the guards that they run by. When they finally catch up with the villain, the players get some more bad guys thrown at them while the villain makes his escape. They fight through those foes, chase the villain some more, and end up in a similar situation again, with some more bad guys thrown at them.

Finally the players catch the villain and the real showdown starts, with a few henchmen bursting into the room during the fight.

I've got some ideas on how to mechanically achieve this, but I've had success getting forum feedback, so I'm posting this to spark ideas and get help.

First off, the players won't have a chance for a short rest from the beginning to the end. This is to wear them down to the point that the showdown will be tough, despite only being with two elites and some minions (I'll have contingencies in case the players end up with more than I anticipated).

Here's the run-down for how I see this happening:

Phase One - Skill Challenge:

The players speeding through the villain's tower, fighting past guards and breaking into where the villain is. The better the players do on this challenge, the fewer henchmen there will be during all of the sub-encounters, and the fewer enemies that will be arriving mid-combat.

Phase Two - Sub-Encounter 1:

The players face 12-15 minions, led by 2-3 standard monsters. Minions will arrive based on the success of the skill challenge described above. At the very start of this fight, the main villain will create some kind of hindering terrain, and then leave (most likely light stuff on fire, though I'm not too good with unique terrain, so any input is welcome).

Phase Three - Sub-Encounter 2:

The villain has had more time to prepare the area, and has set up some inconveniences for the players. There is some sort of room-wide trap, along with 2-3 standard monsters and several more minions. Again, there will be some hindering and challenging terrain to navigate to slow the players down.

Phase Four - Showdown:

Here's the showdown, and it takes place on top of the tower, which is something like a pyramid. The fight will consist of the villain (an elite soldier) and his flying mount (an elite skirmisher). The first part of this fight will be while the villain is mounted, and flying around the tower several hundred feet above the ground, trying to knock the players off. The players must first kill the mount, then kill the villain. I will post stat-blocks when I have time, but for now I want to get a feel for how things will play out.

Minions will show up periodically to mess with the players, and the pyramid shape of the tower will cause a problem (especially when falling).

Does anyone have any experience with encounters like this, and if so, any advice, comments, critiques or criticisms are always welcome.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I recently ran a mechanically similar chase scene, using skill challenges between combat scenes, and it worked very well. I used some pretty serious hindering terrain concepts {including a 30' wall with an artillery bad guy on top} as well as hazardous terrain {randomly places geysers that would damage and daze the PCs}

One concern I see in your post is that the players may resent seeing the big bad guy and not being able to act/stop him. I know my PC's have the ability to stop an NPC in their tracks.. which would leave your elite in the first encounter.
Depending on how you take it, this could be a good thing.. or not.

So, I like your plan.. but recommend you give the PCs a shot at the villan if he is in the encounter, and plan for what happens if he/she gets stopped at any point along the way.

 

[keterys]

I will say, that sounds like 3 combats without a rest. The first two are relatively weak combats,but real combats nonetheless. You're going to potentially see far too much focus on at-wills and interesting powers and certainly healing powers used up before the final guy.

 

[Squire James]

If you allow no rests at all, then you basically need to gauge the difficulty of the encounter based on ALL the monsters and hazardous terrain in the whole darn thing. And the group will be fighting the Big Bad with only at-wills and perhaps with a bunch of healing surges they can't use. If that is exactly what you want, fine. However, I think that will make the final fight VERY grindy and unfun.

I suggest allowing "mini rests" between the sub-encounters - representing a round or two of rest to "catch their breath". Each player gains a fixed number of recharges, usable to regain an encounter power or spend a healing surge. Make the number low enough they can't get everything back unless they really went cheap on the previous sub-encounter.

You can work it into the skill challenge - maybe success increases the recharge number rather than reduce the number of guards. Or maybe they get 1 or 2 extra recharges if they accept a failure in the skill challenge.

This will also allow you to be a bit rougher on the party without making it unsurvivable.

 

[Squire James]

As for the "we use a restrain power on the BBEG at the beginning" tactic, if that happens you will need to describe the villain acting a bit annoyed at being hindered as he is otherwise immune to the effect. Perhaps he couldn't prepare the second sub-encounter as much as he would have liked because his escape was delayed a bit.

Remind the players that the Lord of the Rings would have been pretty boring if Isildur had tossed the ring into the volcano during the prologue...

 

[OnlineDM]

I also worry a little about your vision for the final showdown, where you say that the players MUST first kill the mount, then the villain. If I'm a player, I may very well say "Forget that! I'm aiming for the guy on the mount, not the mount itself!"

How do you plan to answer that approach? Just saying, "No, you can't," doesn't seem like fun. Maybe say that the mount is providing cover (sure) or superior cover (maybe) to the rider - "Sure you can TRY to attack him, but it won't be easy!"

 

[Saagael]

I also worry a little about your vision for the final showdown, where you say that the players MUST first kill the mount, then the villain. If I'm a player, I may very well say "Forget that! I'm aiming for the guy on the mount, not the mount itself!"

How do you plan to answer that approach? Just saying, "No, you can't," doesn't seem like fun. Maybe say that the mount is providing cover (sure) or superior cover (maybe) to the rider - "Sure you can TRY to attack him, but it won't be easy!"

Mount has a power that re-directs attacks to it. Or more precisely, the rider is skilled enough to use the mount as a shield. Think like the Witch King in Return of the King; the mount has to die before the players can get at the villain.

 

[Saagael]

Thanks for the good advice! I'm working on re-tooled version of this, and so far here are some changes:

After the first main skill challenge, there will be a group skill challenge between the fights. Success determines how many resources they get back, how much time the villain has to prepare the next set of roadblocks, and whether they'll catch the villain, or only see him as he runs through the next door.

This way they'll be able to get 1-2 encounters back per combat, and spend a single healing surge. Along with that, for the endurance combats I usually give the players a mid-combat milestone about half way through. So right before they reach the showdown, they'll get a milestone to play with.

I'll reduce the mini-combats to 1-2 standard monsters and a horde of minions. My group is pretty optimized, and will be able to take out a standard monster in a round, maybe two.

 

[knightofround]

Mount has a power that re-directs attacks to it. Or more precisely, the rider is skilled enough to use the mount as a shield. Think like the Witch King in Return of the King; the mount has to die before the players can get at the villain.

Eh...not a big fan of the "players cannot do this, until they do this" attitude, but I suppose that's getting off topic.

I think you've set up a really cool scene for your players. Unfortunately like several people have pointed out, long duration encounters aren't very fun to play, mechanics-wise. Personally I'd recommend having more skill challenges in-between mini-encounters, with the possible reward being recharging encounter powers, second wind, the ability to spend a healing surge or two outside of combat...stuff like that.

 

[Saagael]

Eh...not a big fan of the "players cannot do this, until they do this" attitude, but I suppose that's getting off topic.

I think you've set up a really cool scene for your players. Unfortunately like several people have pointed out, long duration encounters aren't very fun to play, mechanics-wise. Personally I'd recommend having more skill challenges in-between mini-encounters, with the possible reward being recharging encounter powers, second wind, the ability to spend a healing surge or two outside of combat...stuff like that.

I understand your hesitance, and it's something I normally wouldn't do. However, my reasoning is that since almost the entire combat is against two elite monsters (same as 4 monsters vs 6 players), they can deal with only being able to target one of the two at a time.

That, and it creates a two-phase fight, where the players need to deal with a fast moving monster that can swoop in and out of range. Once they're done with that, they face off against the up-in-your-face villain.

However, since a few of you don't like the idea of restricting player targeting, I think I'll use the rule that the rider has superior cover against attacks while mounted. The mount it 10 times bigger than the villain, so naturally it should be able to take most of the attack.