Chris Perkis has a column where he talks about running two consecutive combat-free sessions.
Who else has run sessions with no combats?
I think I'd had at least one combat in every 4e session until a couple of sessions ago.
My non-combat session
The session began with the denouement following a big village-saving encounter. (Which had only saved part of the village.)
There was a skill challenge by some of the PCs to chase a fleeing enemy cleric riding a spirehorn behemoth. They failed, and lost the fugitive but managed to hang onto their dinosaur.
There was a skill challenge to resolve what would happen to the village - would they stay, or retreat as refugees to the nearby city, to which the PCs were headed in any event? It also emerged that the village headman had been buying their saftey by smuggling weapons to the hobgoblins who attacked them, so another aspect of the skill challenge was working out what happened to him - did he stay in charge (against the wishes of the PCs) or get lynched (which some of the PCs supported) or exiled? In the end, the villagers retreated to the city, leaving the headman and hencment behind to do their best in an abandoned and half-burned village.
There was some exploration en route to the city - I had placed a couple of links to the Bloodtower scenario from Open Grove. The PCs noticed a disturbed cemetry and some undead tracks, but decided to press on to the city rather than follow the trail of the undead.
At the city, there were negotiations to admit the refugees and deal with the behemoth - in the end, it was agreed that it would be killed for meat (there was no propsect of stabling or feeding it, and it was deemed too dangerous to be released). The players canvassed various slaughtering options, and decided to drive it over a waterfall upstream from the city, so that it's body could then be dragged to the city docks where it would then be butchered. (While camping overnight outside the city, before slaughtering the beast in the morning, they set up an Undead Ward - low level ritual from Open Grave - but turned out not to need it, as no Undead attacked them. But the ritual lasts until the markings are disturbed, so it still has the potential to provide benefits into the future.)
The actual killing of the behemoth was run as a simple skill challenge (some Nature checks and a few encounter powers to help drive the beast over the falls and ensure no townsfolk were hurt by it when it hit the bottom). Bringing tons of meat to a city suffering from a drop in agricultural production as its outlying villages are destroyed by hobgoblins brought the PCs instant fame. They entered the city with the dwarven warpriest of Moradin in the lead. A dwarven NPC warrior whom the dwarf had recently rescued (whom I'd named Gutboy Barrelhouse due to nostalgia and failed imagination) promoted himself to herald of Lord Derik.
Gutboy also introduced the PCs to his aunt (the dwarven smith from Speaker in Dreams). They got some gossip from her, then went to be greeted by the Patriarch of Bahamut who is one of the leaders in the town, and who was scheduled to parade that noon down the main street. The parade was a big success. The patriarch welcomed and thanked them. Some of the PCs joined the parade. The shady drow, though, hung back and spied on dissenters and rabble rousers instead - he followed some back to a meeting in a small square among the back streets to learn (i) that the rabble rousers were led by a chaos-worshipping seeress called The Blessed, and (ii) that some sort of uprising would take place in the town market later that afternoon.
The session ended with the drow racing back to the market to meet up with the other PCs and let them know about the pending action. (En route, he spotted the escaped cleric in the company of another enemy PC across a crowded street - increasing his sense of urgency!)
My follow-up combat session
The session that followed was cut short due to family commitments, but involved various precautions being taken against the enemy NPCs, and then preparing to put down the uprising. Which was achieved - only one innocent townsperson died, wantonly beheaded by a Demogorgon cultist, and this was because the PCs didn't want to strike the first blow in a fight in the marketplace.
The fight against the cultists was a fun one, in part because of the "protect the bystanders" aspect - which lead to such things as the wizard using an enlarged colour spray to knock a big chunk of the market crowd unconscious, so they couldn't get into, or cause, trouble! - and also because The Blessed had found herself a good position at an upper-storey window, looking out onto the market square with superior cover.
The wizard ended up Arcane Gating into the upstairs room, and then - with a crit on his Thunderwave - blasted The Blessed through the window, for a bonus 1d10+1d6 falling damage. Her parting response was to summon a Guardian Demon into the room. The demon had to squeeze at first, but then made room for itself by blasting out the already-weakened upstairs wall. But losing its superior cover against the ranged strikers down below in the marketplace ended up being its downfall.
Reflections
An account of the follow-up combat might seem at odds with the thread title. But for me, the way the two sessions worked together reinforced the sort of play I like from 4e: conflict, ultimately, will come down to combat - it's the way that PCs and their opponents are built, after all - but there is nevertheless plenty of scope in the game (both mechanically, and in terms of the fiction that it supports), to use non-combat sub-conflicts and exploration to seed those conflicts that combat will ultimately resolve.
Who else has run sessions with no combats?
I think I'd had at least one combat in every 4e session until a couple of sessions ago.
My non-combat session
The session began with the denouement following a big village-saving encounter. (Which had only saved part of the village.)
There was a skill challenge by some of the PCs to chase a fleeing enemy cleric riding a spirehorn behemoth. They failed, and lost the fugitive but managed to hang onto their dinosaur.
There was a skill challenge to resolve what would happen to the village - would they stay, or retreat as refugees to the nearby city, to which the PCs were headed in any event? It also emerged that the village headman had been buying their saftey by smuggling weapons to the hobgoblins who attacked them, so another aspect of the skill challenge was working out what happened to him - did he stay in charge (against the wishes of the PCs) or get lynched (which some of the PCs supported) or exiled? In the end, the villagers retreated to the city, leaving the headman and hencment behind to do their best in an abandoned and half-burned village.
There was some exploration en route to the city - I had placed a couple of links to the Bloodtower scenario from Open Grove. The PCs noticed a disturbed cemetry and some undead tracks, but decided to press on to the city rather than follow the trail of the undead.
At the city, there were negotiations to admit the refugees and deal with the behemoth - in the end, it was agreed that it would be killed for meat (there was no propsect of stabling or feeding it, and it was deemed too dangerous to be released). The players canvassed various slaughtering options, and decided to drive it over a waterfall upstream from the city, so that it's body could then be dragged to the city docks where it would then be butchered. (While camping overnight outside the city, before slaughtering the beast in the morning, they set up an Undead Ward - low level ritual from Open Grave - but turned out not to need it, as no Undead attacked them. But the ritual lasts until the markings are disturbed, so it still has the potential to provide benefits into the future.)
The actual killing of the behemoth was run as a simple skill challenge (some Nature checks and a few encounter powers to help drive the beast over the falls and ensure no townsfolk were hurt by it when it hit the bottom). Bringing tons of meat to a city suffering from a drop in agricultural production as its outlying villages are destroyed by hobgoblins brought the PCs instant fame. They entered the city with the dwarven warpriest of Moradin in the lead. A dwarven NPC warrior whom the dwarf had recently rescued (whom I'd named Gutboy Barrelhouse due to nostalgia and failed imagination) promoted himself to herald of Lord Derik.
Gutboy also introduced the PCs to his aunt (the dwarven smith from Speaker in Dreams). They got some gossip from her, then went to be greeted by the Patriarch of Bahamut who is one of the leaders in the town, and who was scheduled to parade that noon down the main street. The parade was a big success. The patriarch welcomed and thanked them. Some of the PCs joined the parade. The shady drow, though, hung back and spied on dissenters and rabble rousers instead - he followed some back to a meeting in a small square among the back streets to learn (i) that the rabble rousers were led by a chaos-worshipping seeress called The Blessed, and (ii) that some sort of uprising would take place in the town market later that afternoon.
The session ended with the drow racing back to the market to meet up with the other PCs and let them know about the pending action. (En route, he spotted the escaped cleric in the company of another enemy PC across a crowded street - increasing his sense of urgency!)
My follow-up combat session
The session that followed was cut short due to family commitments, but involved various precautions being taken against the enemy NPCs, and then preparing to put down the uprising. Which was achieved - only one innocent townsperson died, wantonly beheaded by a Demogorgon cultist, and this was because the PCs didn't want to strike the first blow in a fight in the marketplace.
The fight against the cultists was a fun one, in part because of the "protect the bystanders" aspect - which lead to such things as the wizard using an enlarged colour spray to knock a big chunk of the market crowd unconscious, so they couldn't get into, or cause, trouble! - and also because The Blessed had found herself a good position at an upper-storey window, looking out onto the market square with superior cover.
The wizard ended up Arcane Gating into the upstairs room, and then - with a crit on his Thunderwave - blasted The Blessed through the window, for a bonus 1d10+1d6 falling damage. Her parting response was to summon a Guardian Demon into the room. The demon had to squeeze at first, but then made room for itself by blasting out the already-weakened upstairs wall. But losing its superior cover against the ranged strikers down below in the marketplace ended up being its downfall.
Reflections
An account of the follow-up combat might seem at odds with the thread title. But for me, the way the two sessions worked together reinforced the sort of play I like from 4e: conflict, ultimately, will come down to combat - it's the way that PCs and their opponents are built, after all - but there is nevertheless plenty of scope in the game (both mechanically, and in terms of the fiction that it supports), to use non-combat sub-conflicts and exploration to seed those conflicts that combat will ultimately resolve.
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