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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rhenny" data-source="post: 6741837" data-attributes="member: 18333">Here's one inspired by some of what the others in the thread have mentioned.Endanger an NPC rather than only the PCs.Another interesting encounter type that can challenge any level group of PCs is the rescue or escort mission where the PCs have to protect others rather than just themselves.  Or, when an NPC they know well falls victim to a horrible fate.  If the PCs are particularly powerful and it is difficult to challenge them directly, the DM can always switch the focus of danger from them to the NPC/NPCs they have just rescued or are escorting.  This one is used very often in computer RPGs and pre-written adventures, and it works especially well if the PCs can spend a little time bonding with the NPC/NPCs prior to the danger ensuing.  It makes my players so mad when a friend (or innocent woman or child) falls because they were not in the right place at the right time, or they could not protect the NPC in question.When I was a teen, I was playing in a campaign where our party had traveled into a desert.  We found a tomb with the help of a guide who we got to know pretty well.  Then, when we got to the tomb, the guide told us about a horrible swarm entity called “Nerve Runners”.  They were incredibly small (nearly microscopic) creatures that moved in mass across the sands of the desert seeking life.  They were like a group of army ants that would swarm over a creature and disrupt the nervous system, killing it painfully and dramatically in seconds.   The entire time, we were getting more and more paranoid that we would encounter the Nerve Runners.  Eventually, we heard the tell-tale sound of buzzing approach.  The guide began freaking out and we got to watch as our guide became their victim.  It scared us half to death and really made us want to get away from the tomb as fast as we could.  The graphic death of the NPC worked to instill fear in our PCs and make use react authentically to the situation.  (Honestly, a number of us players actually stood up on our chairs so that we would not be touching the ground while the DM described the Nerve Runners and the way they danced over the body of the guide).Many years later, Doctor Who aired an episode called “Silence in the Library” that used a similar idea.  A swarm of unseen entities, the Vashta Nerada, that travel in shadows of the Library would pick off NPCs one by one turning them into skeletal zombies – I guess it is also partly the fear inducing plot development used in Aliens as the alien skulks around the ship and kills NPCs one at a time while the hero toils to find a way to kill/escape it.</blockquote>

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