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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7123902" data-attributes="member: 20564">I mentioned a bunch of different types of encounters over my wall of text, my best is this bit:  "[M]y favorite combats are where there's more at stake then HPs. Rescues, what-have you. Things that make you adapt and think instead of "just" trying to run the foes out of HPs before you do yourself."  (My second guess is where I was talking about Combat as Sport and putting in things to showcase various characers.)If I guessed wrong let me know.Here's a few of the last scenes I ran that fit the bill:After multiple adventures broken up over their career of helping the druids to complete a set of McGuffins, they have returned late with the last ones and the mystic-level head of all druids is in a bad place.  The plan was that in order to prevent a world-destroying tragedy she would sacrifice her life to fertilize a new world tree.  But because the players were late, she had been infected herself.  They battled to her (some normal attrition battles), but the final battle was scaled to utterly defeat them - though not too quickly.  But their goal wasn't to win via defeating the foe, it was to use an item given to them that would temporarily cleanse her so she would stop powering the foes and be able able to complete the ritual.  Dealing with it as a regular combat would have been suicidal.  They just needed to figure that out and change from "defeat them" to "reach her at any costs and do the cleansing". A previous encounter had them escaping from a collapsing Ice Castle after having slain the frost giant sorceress and her consort.  They were pursued by frost giant zombies.  Could they defeat the zombies?  Yes, but they were bags of HPs and it would have taken time.  Would that time wasted also have collapsed the castle on their head?  Also yes.  So it turned into a running battle where they couldn't afford to slow down or stay engaged, and if someone drops you can't leave them behind.Examples off the top of my head:Cultists are completing a ritual which will soon summon demonic aid.  Do you spend time countering the ritual (Religion or Arcana checks to delay it), going after the cultists chanting (who aren't attacking you), or the muscle that actually hurting you?  Either way there are pros and cons to your choices.A bunch of ghouls attacking a funeral party after the graveyard had been desecrated.  Very limited chances for AoE, and plenty of bystanders for the mindless but feral/hungry ghouls to go after.  Probably an easy battle if it was a room a dungeon, but do you finish off ones you are engaged with or leave them to go after ones dropping and eating commoners?</blockquote>

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