Designing Encounters - Difficult Terrain Use?

[Shadowslayer]

Howdy all. So I'm cooking up a new campaign and am starting off by drawing up a couple of encounters, and have a question for the community at large.

4e seems to really encourage the use of various types of terrain, and in this I'm looking primarily at mundane locations with difficult terrain such as bushes, uneven/rocky ground, shallow pools etc. And I guess basically the question is "how much is too much?"

At what point does difficult terrain stop making things more interesting, and start making things a pain in the butt for the PCs?

For guys that draw up their own stuff, how much do you use? How often? Does it increase the fun or diminish it? Ever just have them square off in a big old empty room or an open field?

Anyone have any other thoughts on terrain use that isn't covered in the DMG?

 

[Asmor]

Difficult terrain is good. 4e plays best with large encounter areas and, perhaps counter-intuitively, difficult terrain makes encounter areas 'virtually larger.' That is to say, crossing a 4-square-wide patch of difficult terrain costs 8 squares of movement, so it's like that 4 squares is actually 8.

How much is too much? I dunno. I don't think I've ever seen it. 100% is definitely too much... 50%? Would probably be fine, depending on circumstances.

 

[S'mon]

I often run fights in the forest, where everything off the narrow path is difficult terrain, ie 90%+. Seems to work fine.

 

[darjr]

What I've run.

A rocky ravine with a bog in it. Tall monoliths dotted the bog. The bog caused on going damage to any in it. Ranged bog monsters hopped to the top of the monoliths to rain down trouble on the PC's. They could do the same and then, with some difficulty, hop from monolith top to monolith top.


A bridge made of sections that would begin to slide and sway past each other. Any actors on sections that would pass close enough by each other got OP's on each other. Moving from one section to the other was an athletics check, or with flourish, and acrobatics check, or suffer falling prone in either section, rolled randomly.

A room with two floating, rotating disks. It granted cover and complete cover to the folks on the disks from the folks on the ground.

The first and last were RPGA the second was from Ivory Goat press and Roger Carbol. Which, sadly, I can't seem to find on the net.

 

[Hereticus]

4e seems to really encourage the use of various types of terrain, and in this I'm looking primarily at mundane locations with difficult terrain such as bushes, uneven/rocky ground, shallow pools etc. And I guess basically the question is "how much is too much?"

I use terrain alot, mostly to set up encounters for the characters. If the characters are traveling along a road, I explain the width of the road, its surface, and how far away and the type of growth on its sides. Then I insist on a marching order.

It gets even tougher on the characters when they are traveling through a swamp, a mountainous pass, the underdark, or crossing a river.

At what point does difficult terrain stop making things more interesting, and start making things a pain in the butt for the PCs?

When you are not descriptive enough, and the characters see a completely different terrain than the DM. They take precautions based on what they believe they are traveling through, and they complain when they are surprised.

For guys that draw up their own stuff, how much do you use? How often? Does it increase the fun or diminish it? Ever just have them square off in a big old empty room or an open field?

As stated previously, it depends where they are going. If they are traveling along a road from city to city, it could be 0%. If they are wilderness wandering, it could be 100%.

Put yourself in the place of the characters and ask yourself... does this make sense?

 

[Rechan]

DT is like spice; sprinkle it, don't dump it.

Too much difficult terrain: When there's no where to move.

Remember that you can't even shift in DT. So, an entire battlefield, or even half a battlefield, of DT is going to suck.

DT works best as a form of "buffer zone". Think of it like a mini-wall - the PCs can go over it, but it's problematic. They want to get behind it (so enemies have to move through it).

Slightly OT, but since we're discussing building encounters to utilize terrain: here is a thread on fantastic terrain.

 

[Hereticus]

Remember that you can't even shift in DT. So, an entire battlefield, or even half a battlefield, of DT is going to suck.

That's the beauty of the Tenser's Disk ritual, you get to ignore what others see as difficult terrain.

Except when something comes up out of the water or swamp and grabs your disk, but we need not discuss that now...

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Too much difficult terrain: When there's no where to move.

Remember that you can't even shift in DT. So, an entire battlefield, or even half a battlefield, of DT is going to suck.

DT works best as a form of "buffer zone". Think of it like a mini-wall - the PCs can go over it, but it's problematic. They want to get behind it (so enemies have to move through it).

Completely agree. Playing a speed five character in area that is mostly/all difficult terrain is a huge pain.

Terrain should be about creating choices for the PCs. The could choose to fight they squishy artillery across the difficult terrain, or the soldier who is in the clear.

 

[karlindel]

I routinely use difficult and blocking terrain in my campaign. I try to change things up so that it stays interesting. Here are a few general types:

Road through the mountains: Have a few boulders and the like, a wide path, and difficult terrain to go up the hillside.

Trail in the woods: Anything off the path is difficult terrain. There will also be a lot of trees and bushes around. This creates a virtually smaller environment, which can be interesting.

Well travelled roads/path: Defined path, off the path is mostly fine, but areas of brush and tall grass that is hindering terrain. pools of shallow water from recent rain can also work well for this.

Feywild swamp with overgrown lilypads (i.e. 5' and 10' diameter), goblins riding giant toads hopped from lilypad to lilypad and peppered PCs with slingstones. The riverbanks were not difficult terrain, but falling into the water meant swim checks, which was worse.

My advice is to keep things different and put an amount of difficult terrain that is appropriate for the area. Also, contrary to what others have said, it is possible to shift in difficult terrain, if you are an elf and/or have abilities that let you shift more than 1 square. In fact, if you have an elf in the party and do not use difficult terrain, you are shortchanging that player as they never get to use one of their character's racial abilities. Also, difficult terrain makes other movement modes (such as teleport) more valuable, giving people an opportunity to showcase such abilities.