Fighting around innocents

Asmor

First Post
So here's my idea... The PCs confront Baddy McBad in a dojo-style building, but inside there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people hog tied and suspended from the ceiling in a regular pattern, 5 feet apart (there would be a person hanging from the ceiling at every intersection on the battle map). Placed beneath each person, so that if the rope is cut they would fall onto it belly-first, is a vicious spike.

Once he starts getting beaten, he would retreat to the center and pull on a rope, which would activate a mechanism causing all the people to start swinging back and forth, making it even more treacherous.

So what kind of modifiers would you all give to a situation like this? I'm thinking I'd let the PCs take a -4 penalty to attack or to AC, and only make a single attack, and this would mean that there would be no chance of hitting an innocent on accident. If they didn't take this penalty, every attack that missed would have a 25% chance of hitting an innocent when they're just hanging and a 50% chance of hitting an innocent once they start swinging.

Not really sure what I'd do as far as the enemy goes, like what tactics he could use... And I'd need a reason for the PCs to have to fight him in there instead of trying to draw him out. Also it seems like there should be a way for a player to sacrifice themself to prevent one of the innocents from being hit... Maybe give them the option of voluntarily being flatfooted, and in return the enemy will not accidentally hit an innocent.

Ooh, maybe even let the bad guy jump up on the innocents and use them as a platform to launch his attacks from... :)
 

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How high are they going to be suspended? Eye level? This seems similar to the "i have a blade at this hostage NPC's throat!" situation.

What is the BBEG? Wizard? Fighter? Rogue?
 

Let's say they're suspended so that their stomachs are 3 feet off the ground (about waist level for most humans). Their limbs would probably be about shoulder-high. So basically they don't have to worry too much about hitting them as they start to swing, but the follow through could probably be a Not Good Thing (tm).

Not sure what the bad guy is... Haven't actually come up with one yet. Just the scenario. It seems like a monk could do fun things, but then you'd lose out on the whole "maniac swinging a sword around" thing. Maybe compromise and make it a monk using kamas or even longswords with that feat from Eberron.
 


Consider this idea yoinked! (though I will be using a pit full of alligators!)

I would make them cover and if you miss by the amount the cover provides you hit the swinging innocent.
 

el-remmen said:
Consider this idea yoinked! (though I will be using a pit full of alligators!)

I would make them cover and if you miss by the amount the cover provides you hit the swinging innocent.

Toss a shark with a frickin' laser beam in there and you gotcherself a par-tay!
 

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