Fun With Encounter Balance...

[Scribble]

So one thing I've been having a lot of fun with lately has been finding ways to sort of "hack" the encounter balance...

For instance, an easy and fun thing I found was putting something (like a big weapon) into the fight that sort of tips it from an average fight to a hard fight, or even "unwinnable" fight with the purpose being that if the PCs manage to take control of that weapon, or take that weapon out, then they tip the battle back into their favor.

Another easy one being to take two "encounters" splice them together, but put something into the area that if the PCs use an action or two they can use to hold off one group while they deal with the other. (The easiest being a door that can be barred and reinforced.)

Another one I tried out was giving the PCs a few minions of their own to play with. (The minions were basically front line grunts the PCs used in an attack on a small fort.)


I have an encounter planned for the future (if they continue on their current path) that uses the skil chalange idea where they can kind of talk part of their enemies out of the fight, and even the odds.

Something else I'm looking into is building two encounters with the idea that the second encounter, would be an easier fight for the PCs if they think to fall back to the prevous encounter location. (Something about the terrain or location would make the fight easier.)

So anyone else like doing stuff like this? What kind of ideas do you use to make encounter balance a little more variable?

 

[Rechan]

Reminds me of this thread.

I'm really curious how you stat up the weapon, Scribble, see your examples. Or how you handle the door. By that I mean, I want to see your notes so I can reproduce it.

 

[Scribble]

Reminds me of this thread.

I'm really curious how you stat up the weapon, Scribble, see your examples. Or how you handle the door. By that I mean, I want to see your notes so I can reproduce it.

I didn't bring my flashdrive with me to work today that has all my notes (I was off for 10 days and wanted to catch up... so I tried to minimize my temptations... ) so I'll try to remember to get back to you with some real numbers.

But for the weapon, I had an encounter that was kind of a solo teamed up with a normal encounter.

There were two big weapons that were kind of like giant slingshots. (I think I used some balista rules combined with some alchemy rules.) One fired big globs of gooey mud that could slow a group of people in a burst, the other did a good amount fo damage in a burst.

Once the players gained control of those, they were able to clear out the normal encounter relatively easily, and deal with the solo on a more even basis.

The solo also had a power that let it shake out (it was a giant possessed tree) a bunch of minions. The slowing mud goo also stopped this power from working.

 

[Rel]

I've had a couple like this recently.

One of them had a room full of undead. The necromantic power that was animating them came from a cracked seal on the far side of the room. Also the primary goal of the PC's in the encounter was to retrieve a magical hammer, which also happened to be the rune-key to a locked door, from one of the more powerful undead. So two ways they could short circuit this fight was to defeat the one Wight with the hammer and take the hammer and escape. The other was to deactivate the necromantic seal, thus putting the dead to rest. Instead the PC's just knuckled down and fought most of the combatants to the death, claiming the hammer right near the battle and deactivating the seal after the fact. Ah well.

The one from last night had them up against a pair of Wizards and three Bugbear bodyguards. The Bugbears were already down to almost Bloodied from fighting some stuff prior to the PC's so this was a relatively easy challenge. Except for the fact that the enemy Wizards had found a scepter that gave them control over a guardian Sphinx. So the PC's had to survive a few attacks from the Sphinx while trying to go around the Bugbears and getting to the Wizard with the scepter. Eventually the Paladin wrested the scepter away from the Wizard but only after half the party was unconscious from the Sphinx + Bugbears.