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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrSpunj" data-source="post: 4666173" data-attributes="member: 994">Forked from: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?postid=4666040" target="_blank"> How long are your 4e combats taking, real time? </a>Since I got such an excellent response to my first forked thread I'll try another! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So what have people tried at their table (or seen as a player) that really worked well? What was dynamic, fun and really added a lot to make the combat more interesting?Also, to try and improve everyones' games, what did you try but didn't work as well as you'd hoped and what did you learn from it?Flipping through the encounters to date I've tried (with mixed but overall less than stellar results):<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Desert Ruins (from Skeleton Key Games) where the party was ambushed, some Goblin Sharpshooters & their Hexer were protected on nearby rooftops while the party was swarmed with Warriors, Cutters, a Skullcleaver & a Blackblade. The Sharpshooters could keep hiding & sniping which really frustrated the party until they'd cleaned up the melee mob though Readied actions were used by PCs at least a couple times to try and retaliate. The Hexer, too, was well protected until the Rogue scaled the wall and put some pressure on it, forcing it to flee.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A large underground cavern where the party was at the bottom and had to climb up. Combat with ochre jellies & shadowhunter bats occurred before the party tackled the cliff which in hindsight was a waste of a much more dynamic fight <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A couple undead/crypt battles using WotC's Dungeon Tiles with sarcophagi, pillars, an altar and other trappings; all of them looked neat but only the pillars really played any role during combat and that only minimally. One battle had a Lightning Field which blocked the only entrance/exit for the room; it damaged & dazed creatures trying to move through it which really effectively split the party up and added a lot to the combat because of the dazed condition which was a bit heavy handed, it affected the combat more than I expected or wanted.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A series of three interconnected caves with a stream running through the middle chamber (which caused at least 1 PC to fall prone!). More goblins with some fire beetles. Again in hindsight I think this could've been a lot more fun but I was still following the DMG guidelines & using "easy" encounters; but I don't think there were enough enemies moving around to make this battle worthwhile. A Doomspore hazard also made a showing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Another mausoleum with a pile of bones at the base of two stairways going up to a second level, then another stairway from there going up to a third level balcony. The bones created 3 waves of skeletal minions as 3 Blazing Skeletons fired down from the 2nd & 3rd levels while 3 Chillborn Zombies guarded the stairs. Here I think the Chillborn Zombies, as Soldiers, did their job a little too well as most all of the combat took place on the ground floor rather than up & down the stairs which is what I was hoping for.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Another room with one of WotC's 8x8 tiles, it's the one with a ring of twelve 2x2 squares around the outside of the tile and a plain 4x4 square centered in the middle. The outside rim of all the 2x2 squares are lined with runes and I used a 4x4 rune tile in the middle as well. As a trap/hazard once each round (based on initiative) I rolled a d12 and any living creatures on that 2x2 square took some necrotic damage, so kind of a roulette thing. Anyone standing on the 4x4 rune in the middle would automatically take damage when I rolled the d12. The party was battling a team of constructs which could safely ignore it. This did add a dynamic item to the fight and I was pretty happy with it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Last session used the Desert Bluff tiles from SKG with the bluffs being 20' high, Climb DC 20. I put a Kruthik Controller (built on the Goblin Hexer's blinding ranged attack vs a single target) on top of a bluff and had the party ambushed & surrounded by Kruthik Adults, Young & Hatchlings. As Nail can surely attest, I did get the party out of their standard frontline/backline formation which threw them a bit off their game (periodically I believe that's A Good Thing (tm) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ) but it largely ended up being a slugfest again at ground floor until most/all of the melee mobs were dead and the party felt like they could finally focus on the annoying Controller with the blinding spit up on the bluff. Taking a hint from the forked thread linked above I should have (& in the future plan on) just treating him as a minion at that point (dying on the next hit since the PCs were victorious).</li> </ul>While I've tried to throw some active environmental pieces in with most every combat most of them really haven't felt all that special or dynamic, not nearly as much as I'd hoped anyway. Any help is much appreciated!Thanks</blockquote>

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