Encounter re-matches - how fun?

[Quasqueton]

How often do your PCs have re-matches with enemies?

In the first adventure in my 3.5 campaign, the PCs encountered a couple of green hags. Between some distracting skeletons and zombies, and some very annoying Strength drains, the PCs just couldn't take down the hags. They ended up having 3 or 4 seperate battles (over 2 game sessions) with those chicks before they finally won.

Then there was a battle with a fiendish treant that saw the death of 4 out of 5 PCs. The 5th PC got away and organized another party. The second fight (the next game session) lasted over 20 rounds, and saw the death of 1 PC, but the treant was destroyed.

Then there was a battle with a half-fiend treant where half the party was paralyzed by blasphemy. The others managed to get them out of the cavern, but one PC was killed. The second encounter (around 4 or 5 game sessions later) got 4 of the 6 PCs got paralyzed by blasphemy, but the 2 still standing managed to get very lucky on top of their smart tactics and kept the treant busy and hurt until the others could come out of their paralysis. The treant was then slain.

And just recently the [new campaign] PCs butted heads with a pair of leveled goblins. The first battle ended in mutual retreat. By the time they met up again (the next game session), the PCs had gained a level, so the second battle was a bit lopsided. The PCs, of course, kicked butt.


Are re-matches more fun? Less fun? More deadly (for the PCs)? Easier (for the PCs)?

What's the longest time between matches you have seen?

[Afterthought note: All this assumes the DM doesn't fudge things to save enemies; all re-matches in this discussion assumes things happened naturally this way.]

Quasqueton

 

[diaglo]

currently in the story hour in my sig, we have been battling several cults/sects/factions/organizations/nations. there are very few escapees. we kill everything and take their stuff.

however, the middle of the story hour included a TPK(although, the DM was a softie and let one PC escape). that group and others hinted at over the course of the campaign are culminating 24 pages later. we are about to decide to either support one group over the others, support none of them, or completely ignore the overarching plot and do something else.

 

[Thanee]

This reminds me of a game, which is quite some time ago... we were playing Castle Greyhawk (older edition adventure, which is not very serious ) and there was no resurrection magic available. We had lost an NPC human illusionist (IIRC) that was with us at some point and feeling somewhat guilty we went back to have him reincarnated (turned out to be a gnome).

At some point later (quite some time later), we met him again... he had gone into the underground and started a small thieves guild (becoming an illusionist/thief, how convenient), his only driving motivation was to catch us and to put us on a "shrink rack" (the opposite of a regular rack). He really didn't like his new body...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Rel]

The first half of my campaign (before we took a lengthy break from it) culminated with the party confronting a group of "Dark Druids" and their undead army. Although the party had the initiative and attacked the Dark Druids in their base camp, they were badly outgunned and wound up fleeing after a very lengthy combat, losing a party member in the process.

After returning to their home base, warning the town of the coming attack and gathering some new allies, they attacked the Dark Druid army again. This time they completely mopped the floor with them and scored a sound and heroic victory. I think the players really enjoyed avenging their fallen comerade and proving themselves against an enemy that had formerly beaten them.

In the second half of this campaign there was a recurring villian: The Blue Demoness. She escaped after the first battle in which they fought her and they encountered her in at least 4 other subsequent battles. Each time they were victorious but each time she escaped. The party Wizard in particular became obsessed with killing her and began to dedicate a large chunk of his spell loadout to things specifically designed to thwart her escapes in the future. Although it was a bit frustrating at times for the players (particularly the Wizard player), I think it really added a lot to the campaign to have an enemy that they so personally hated.