Encounters in a city conquered by Hobgoblins

[fireinthedust]

So I'm trying to get a handle on designing a killer encounter. My group has been sailing through everything, for 4 levels. Suddenly we switch DMs so I can take a break, and the new guy levels our troop with a band of goblins! One hexer, a bunch of skirmishers, nothing really fancy. We don't have the teamwork or skill I think we should have, but there you go.
Basically, my barbarian got pinned down, and the Wizard was hiding and pinging with his MMs, and *not using his dailies (last fight of the night). We nearly died. I went down.


ANYWAY: now that I'm going to pick up another session for my game, I want to run a killer encounter. I need to know how.

[sblock=My scenario in a nutshell]SCENARIO: the PCs have returned to a town taken over by an army of Hobgoblins and their Red Dragon cohort, in the employ of a cartel of Tiefling Nobles/warlocks.
The party wants to go in and poke around, as they have a feud vs. the Tieflings.

COMPLICATION: everyone is looking for these magical children, two of whom are with the party right now. The Tieflings want them, but so does the general of the Hobgoblins (a powerful brute not unlike Darkseid from DC comics; not yet encountered). The PCs are aware of the kids' strangeness, but are still going in.

COMPLICATION 2: Two members of the party are Divine: a cleric and a paladin. The divine PCs in this campaign are part of an underground church (the only church left) that hunts undead and infernal magic users (ie: the Tiefling cartel = Wolfram & Hart).

COMPLICATION 3: The PCs' last visit caused the upset that allowed the cartel to excuse their taking-over the town, enslaving the thieves' guild, etc. Townsfolk may or may not know this or them on sight. Also, the PCs have succeeded in returning the natural order to the seasons, but that means it's winter/snowing.

IDEA 1: a fellow Paladin, a Tiefling Paladin, has been outed by his peers and caged in the middle of the \market Square. The PCs can tell he's one of their order. However, there are 4 Ogres stationed in the square, and some normal guards. Their fellow will die if they don't save him somehow.

Idea 2: The Hobgoblins don't care about other dangers, and the PCs hear that some child has been pulled into the sewers by Undead. They must go in and save her: sewer skirmishes using my dungeon tiles.

Idea 3: The haunted Temple has been taken over by a group of Cthulhu cultists (well, Star Spawn cultist warlock types); I bought the "bag of Cthulhu" and I was thinking of making some horrific stats using the Monster Builder. Maybe the PCs can rescue some ghosts from sacrifice? What kinds of combat powers would various statues of Cthulhu have (erected by the cultists)? Or what should I focus on for the fight?

Idea 4: dinner party of powerful Tieflings. Interesting array of villains, or villainous types. Probably exposition rather than combat. Still: vampire tieflings, fiendish tieflings, gelatinous tieflings, etc.[/sblock]

What are things that make a combat vicious yet fun? High damage? Pinning PCs down? strange terrain? By-standers?

 

[fireinthedust]

I've decided there are necessary encounters for the town. However, do any of these mechanically sound like a challenge for 6 PCs of 4th level?


1) Various Patrols: the PCs attract attention, one or more of these should show up.
Hobgoblin: if they're near the barracks, or are really naughty

Goblin/Hexer: most other encounters; likely running about hassling peasants, so the PCs can thwack them and get some credit.

2) Tieflings and Ogres: basically the Ogres are bodyguards for the tieflings. I'll probably use Heretic tieflings, three Human Guards (or re-skinned Hobgoblins) and an Ogre.
Or: a Tiefling heretic on a sedan, with several human minions (1hp, do nothing else), and two Ogres.
Likely a good idea to use lower-level versions of Ogres, I think.


Otherwise, I think don't know if I should worry about tactics per se. Maybe the patrols should be a lone encounter (ie: hard on their own) but eventually I can back them up with minions every round: the PCs can keep fighting, but they should run (escape to the sewers, etc.) or they'll be over-run?
I'm thinking that tying them down with ensnarement might not be the flavour of encounter I'm wanting.

What made good encounters that you designed?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, there can be a lot of factors which make an interesting combat. I've used MANY different ploys at different times.

A running battle. Maybe the PCs go into town to do something, rescue the paladin for an example and all of a sudden some nasties show up right after they make the rescue. Perhaps the nasties are after the kids. The party has to pull out under fire, going through a number of different areas. Maybe they start in the square, have to cross a bridge, go down some alleys, and fight their way out a gate. At each stage there are a few enemies in front of them they have to dispatch quickly as the big bads are catching up to them from behind. I'd be prepared for the players to decide to dodge into almost any sort of place and try to disappear or hole up. It probably won't play out entirely as a single encounter, but it could depending on how you lay things out.

A fight against some aberrations could be fun. They can have all sorts of crazy powers. MM2 has some interesting ones. Combine with a few cultist types for minions and maybe a cleric type leader. Statues could project some zones of some kind that do psychic damage and hit people with effects of some kind. The star spawn types probably don't care about their followers either, so you could have a nasty gate in and just start eating things left and right, or the statue zones could work for the PCs if they play it right (pushing the enemy into it or something).

A little surprise appearance by a lurker or two at some point could be fun. It can grab a kid and then the players will have to scramble to get him back.

You could also prepare one or two potential allies that might jump into a situation, like make a couple thief guild members that would like to mess with the Tieflings for taking over their guild.

Bystanders could be interesting, though you already have the kids to work with. I have never tried doing a fight in the middle of a big crowd, but that could be cool.

Time limits are good too. Like having an encounter where there's a ritual going on or an execution about to take place.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I tend to agree that AoEs which make it really hard for the party to move around much tend to not work out too well. They are OK if they just deny some terrain or close an escape route or something, but when the whole party gets stuck in a zone of difficult terrain or a slowing type effect it can get dull pretty fast (those vine horrors hit the party in my game like that, it turned into a slugfest).

 

[renau1g]

Yeah, avoid slowing effects/blinding effects, etc. We just got finished fighting a bunch of lizardfolk and it got f'ing frustrating the -2 penalty to attack rolls all the time.

I'd make the terrain dynamic, add elements during a fight that force a change in tactics, whether that's enemies lying in wait to attack the squishy rear of the party, pit traps in the area...whatever

 

[Regicide]

Towns are a good opportunity to add additional victory conditions to an encounter such as prevent civilians from dying, prevent buildings from being set on fire, kill them before they get reinforcements or whatever. I'd toss in something like that for them to have to work on at the same time as the fight to make it more difficult and a little different than your typical dungeon fight.

 

[fireinthedust]

A running battle. Maybe the PCs go into town to do something, rescue the paladin for an example and all of a sudden some nasties show up right after they make the rescue. Maybe they start in the square, have to cross a bridge, go down some alleys, and fight their way out a gate. At each stage there are a few enemies in front of them they have to dispatch quickly as the big bads are catching up to them from behind. I'd be prepared for the players to decide to dodge into almost any sort of place and try to disappear or hole up. It probably won't play out entirely as a single encounter, but it could depending on how you lay things out.

Good call. I have the City of Peril map set, so I'll likely want to have the rescue in the Market Area (now mostly abandoned due to invaders and the harsh weather).
However, I could run the escape with the Tiefling Paladin as a skill challenge. If they fail, the PCs have to fight on, say, street Dungeon Tiles until they can run. If they fail the next skill challenge, repeat. Until, of course, they get into the sewers (where no goblins will follow them).

A fight against some aberrations could be fun. They can have all sorts of crazy powers.

I like the statues idea. I'll be using the Pathfinder Cathedral flip mat for this one, btw, just like I did in an earlier exploration of the Temple. The PCs had to run in and grab a tome, before ghosts ate them.
That said, the set up could be several statues at key locations. Maybe the goal would be to get in and rescue a Ghost by killing a couple cultists and interrupting the ritual.

A statue as a zone effect center would be cool. I could have the mini-cthulhu figures as a horde of half-illithid-type minions.

A little surprise appearance by a lurker or two at some point could be fun. It can grab a kid and then the players will have to scramble to get him back.

good thinking. Maybe a hobgoblin assasin-type, who spots them and starts to run. Tactical challenge during a combat to get them rather than focus fire on artillary or a controller.

You could also prepare one or two potential allies that might jump into a situation, like make a couple thief guild members that would like to mess with the Tieflings for taking over their guild.

interestingly, the Thieves' guild are captured. They're all were-beasts for this setting, and the Tieflings have turned them into sniffers: lycanthropic beasts who sniff out magic-users or divine casters. Could be a fun obstacle for them to avoid.
Maybe one of the were-rats (Mr. Quick, a female who helped them before) would want to join up and get them in somewhere, perhaps to rescue a kid?

Time limits are good too. Like having an encounter where there's a ritual going on or an execution about to take place.

The ghosts. A quick encounter to stop the ritual once the party gets into town; a side quest, sure, but still good. Maybe 10 rounds, or the ghost gets it.