Improvising Encounters - hard?

[S'mon]

I thought this should go in its own thread.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wik
If PCs stray off the beaten path in my 4e adventure, and I need to throw a pirate encounter at them... how do I do that? Quick. You have 5 level 5 heroes. What do you throw at the PCs that has a pirate theme, because my players decided they want to hunt pirates instead of investigate that zombie hook?

You can do it, sure. But it's going to be a helluva lot harder than it is in SW, where I can grab a few dice, and put together pirate stats on the fly.


Weird, that's the exact opposite of my experience with 4e. I find 4e is great for improvised encounters. In this case I'd probably take either the 9th level Pirate or the 10th level Pirate Chief from MM2, maybe halve his hit points (I do that with most 4e monsters), and give him some Human Lackey* 7th level Minions for crew. That takes maybe 30 seconds of page-flipping. I might also add in a wizard, using the 4th level human mage stats in the MM, or possibly the 7th level Hexer in MM2 if I was feeling mean. Or I could reskin the Hobgoblin Warcaster, who is very nasty for a supposedly 3rd level foe.

*I could reskin the 2nd level Human Bandit, but I usually prefer minions.

If I had longer I might create 5th level Pirates by de-levelling the 9th level MM2 pirate, that takes a few minutes though. I'd probably keep the Chief at 10th level since he's already roughly equivalent to a 6th level Elite, but if I really wanted to I could de-level him to 6th then Elite-ify him.

Edit: Looking at the Pirate & Pirate Chief stats just now, the Chief looks hard to take down by a 5th level group, so I'd probably stick with using the Pirate as leader of a bunch of Human Lackeys and/or Human Bandits. I'd reskin the bandits' maces as cutlasses. I'd keep the Pirate at full hit points so he'd stick around.

Edit 2: I don't normally bother with XP budgets, but if I wanted a 1000 XP/level 5 'balanced' encounter then:

Pirate (1) XP 400
Lackeys (6) XP 75 x 6 = 450
Mage (1) XP 175

Total: 1025

I'm thinking there that the Pirate is most likely a senior officer of the ship - a bosun, first mate, sub-chief sort of level; while the Lackeys are typical mook pirates, and the Mage probably mostly mends things and does weather magic, rune-casting and other noncombat things, hence his low combat level. His thunderclap and lightning strike abilities may just be side-effects of his mastery of esoteric weather-magic rituals.

An alternative would just be to use 3 Pirates (XP 1200). I would only do this if they were the crew of a notorious-to-legendary pirate captain like Bluebeard or Barbarrossa, and I wanted to impress the PCs with how tough they were. This would make it clear that the PCs couldn't just storm onto Bluebeard's ship and kill everyone, they'd need to be smart & careful.
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Do other people do this? Do you find it hard to improvise encounters at the table? My experience so far has been that it's a lot easier than with 3e, which I don't think supported improvised NPC encounters well - monsters were ok as long as they came straight out of the MM.

 

[Crothian]

I feel that once I'm comfortable with a rule set I can improvise in it with success. In 4e I know about what the Ac and saves should be for a given level threat. I make up some neat encounter power or something the bad guy can do, but most of the stuff is just flavor.

One thing I always do when I'm improvising is flip to an unused section of my note book, even if it is just blank pages. It makes the players think that I'm prepared for what ever they do and creates an illusion that seems to make the game more enjoyable for them.

 

[Nifft]

I feel that once I'm comfortable with a rule set I can improvise in it with success.

This, absolutely this. Familiarity breeds confidence, and the ability to correctly fold mechanics around whatever spark of inspiration leaps to mind.

I got good at this with 3.5e, it seems like 4e is even easier, and now I'm getting the hang of Exalted 2e.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Cadfan]

I think there's a difference between on-the-fly creation of encounters, and on-the-fly creation of monsters. I'm very confident with the first, slightly less with the second.

For the specific example of pirates, I'd just reskin whatever was closest, and trade out any unwanted racial themed powers for whatever fit the race I was intending the pirates to be. Done in a few seconds of page flipping.

 

[Almacov]

The first 4e session I ran was almost entirely improvised, and I was really impressed with how easily one can throw together a balanced encounter. Simply having an XP budget and an XP cost for each creature has done wonders, I think.

4e being so movement-heavy, I also found that half the fun baked into an encounter is the environment you put down on the table. I try to envision a cool place for an encounter and simply scribble it down onto the grid. I find as soon as I start thinking in three dimensions instead of just X by Y rooms it gets really easy to churn out interesting encounters on the fly. The rules are simple enough they can conform to whatever pops into my head pretty readily 95% of the time.

 

[Wik]

There are a few problems I have with that. First, I'm not familiar with every monster in the book. When I grab a couple of monsters and make on the fly changes, I'm still not familiar with all of their powers, meaning tactics and powers are not necessarily as perfect as they should be.

Monster powers don't sync up with one another all the time, either. Which can contribute for a weaker monster.

Also, there's the physical problems with ad-hoccing. If I run an encounter with, say, three pirates (from the MM 2), a zombie (from MM1), and, um, a Spriggan (Mm2), I'm flipping through pages of one book, and have another book open.

It is doable, for sure. BUT, the 4e/3e systems do not lend themselves particularly well to it, as compared to other games, where monster/enemy creation can be done incredibly quickly, which was my original point.

For what it's worth, I'm currently working on a system that would let me improvise monsters - essentially prepared statblocks by role, where the GM can plug in numbers and play. So far, my playtests show the power levels are about the same.

 

[Rechan]

For the specific example of pirates, I'd just reskin whatever was closest, and trade out any unwanted racial themed powers for whatever fit the race I was intending the pirates to be. Done in a few seconds of page flipping.

This.

Here, Improv Encounter in Five Easy Steps:

Step 1: Call a 5 minute break.
Step 2: Look at the theme of what you need, and then think in game terms. In this situation, you need Pirates. OK, what feels "piratey" in game terms? Skirmishers, lots and lots of skirmishers, and either an artillery or a controller as a "Ship's Mage". You also likely need one to be a "leader" of some sort. Consider a template, like Battle Champion.
Step 3: Look through the index in the back of the MM for anything in those roles within say, 3 levels.
Step 4: Pick the best that could work, and place posits or note cards into the pages of the stats.
Step 5: Reskin them to suit the place you need, changing the nature (like elemental damage) of the powers. Swap out racial powers if necessary.

Done.

 

[Rechan]

It is doable, for sure. BUT, the 4e/3e systems do not lend themselves particularly well to it, as compared to other games, where monster/enemy creation can be done incredibly quickly, which was my original point.

You mean a rules light system is easier to run in a situation where you don't have all the rules prepped and need to do it on the fly? You don't say!

That's sort of the situation that a rules light system is made for.

 

[Wik]

You mean a rules light system is easier to run in a situation where you don't have all the rules prepped and need to do it on the fly? You don't say!

That's sort of the situation that a rules light system is made for.

Yup. and I made no attempt to hide that in my comment.

I think heavier games have a harder time improvising encounters. I never said it's impossible (and many in this thread have shown how they'd do it... and I've employed similar techniques). I just said that it can be tough, and there are a lot of pitfalls.

Honestly, I think improvised encounters are one of the weaknesses of modern D&D. If I just pull numbers together, or grab a statblock and change it on the fly, things can get messy. And I think there's little doubt that an improvised encounter is going to be, on average, less fun/weaker than a planned encounter in most places.

In the original post (on another thread), I was saying that I think the reason modern D&D adventures tend to be a bit more "railroady" is because they are purchased more as time-savers, and that anything that was a time saver that forced GMs to improvise (an acquired skill in GMing, and definitely not one of the things the system does well naturally) would detract from the value of the adventure.

 

[Crothian]

I'm flipping through pages of one book, and have another book open.

It is doable, for sure. BUT, the 4e/3e systems do not lend themselves particularly well to it, as compared to other games, where monster/enemy creation can be done incredibly quickly, which was my original point.

Ya, if you have to flip through books it is a pain in the ass. I don't know the monsters that well either so i make them up in my improvising. With the good advice on creating monsters reading that really makes it easier to do it quickly and with a good chance of having a decent challenge. Plus if I do create them and the challenge is either too easy or hard, I can still mess with the numbers on the fly to make it a better encounter.