Infinite enemies

[Bullgrit]

Have you ever used “infinite” monsters for any encounters?

I’ve used such a few times now, through various campaigns and levels, and each encounter has been interesting (at least to me).

For instance:

One encounter: A graveyard with a guardian “necromental” (essentially an earth elemental typed as undead) that rises out of the grave dirt (with bones and skulls) to prevent intruders from entering a particular crypt. When anyone gets within 60’ of the structure, the necromental rises up and attacks. Leave the 60’ area and it falls back down into the graveyard. Kill it and it/another rises up again one round later. So the PCs have to figure out that straight-out battling won’t win the encounter, and they have to devise a new way of getting past.

Another encounter: Trying to cross through an area of swamp, there is a horde of low-level frogmen spread out over the terrain. When invaders come through, the frogmen attack en mass, with more continuously coming to the area no matter how many are slaughtered. The PCs have to figure out how to get through the area quickly before the frogmen numbers become a critical mass that blocks their path.

Another encounter: A pair of summoning circles that summon small numbers of dretch each round the PCs are in the room. The PCs have to find a way to stop the summonings before the number coming in surpasses the number they can dispatch in the time.

One thing that really surprised me (though it probably shouldn’t have) is how long it took the PCs/Players to realize that the fight could be endless if all they did was straight-up fight. Another thing that surprised me (and shouldn’t have) is how PCs/Players have a tendency to stop movement when they get into a fight. In all three of the encounters above, the PCs essentially just stopped all movement and stood there and slugged it out with the endless fight.

No PC died in the above encounters but in the first two, the PCs did fight long enough to pretty much expend all their abilities and resources before pulling back.

Have you ever run/experienced an encounter with an infinite enemy?

Bullgrit

 

[Pyrex]

The first 4E adventure our group ran had an interesting mechanic for (near) infinite enemies.

The battle consisted of a couple of heavies and 8 or so minions. Until you manage to kill all the minions in one round, on their initiative any dead minions get back up and fight again.

 

[Akaiku]

Did they get additional xp for killing more of the enemies or was it baised on being a 'trap'?

Generally speaking, infinite respawn places are never used with the group I play with as there are exactly 2 real responses. Kill them till the gm gets bored or just leave. Or, to use your frogman example, till the players go, "Dude, we've killed like a billion frogs. There should be a literal bridge over this swamp in their bodies. Why haven't they given up? Or ran out of dudes?"

 

[The_Warlock]

Have you ever used “infinite” monsters for any encounters?

I have, to great effect.

I've generally found the "stay still and destroy the enemy" to be fairly common among players who aren't specifically playing dodgy/mobile characters.

That said, my players have generally picked up on the "fighting is not the solution" fairly quickly.

Of course, they realize that I follow the laws of Gygaxian Naturalism (whoever coined that term deserves a really awesome hat), and they can run into things in the world that are bigger than them.

Thus they usually look for alternate solutions if full frontal assault proves less than optimal in short order. And, I'm always willing to work with interesting and creative problem solving on their part. While I've generally thought through a few different scenarios for any given encounter, they invariably surprise me with plans ranging from the brilliant to the downright slapstick bad.

The best one was an ancient and abandoned dwarf delve which they believed to be inhabited by the dragon that had driven the dwarves out, and with whom prophecy suggested they had a date.

In they go, and in the first great hall they send out scouts to the various guard balconies where they awake and alert several undead dwarven skeletons who successfully flee the scouts, dropping portcullis and sounding an alarm.

The great door grinds down behind them and they hear strange clattering sounds. In from every side passage file in hundreds of undead dwarves, some in armor, others in merchant garb, or priestly gear, and form into ranks on either side of the hall, blocking every major exit but one...

If the characters approach the skeletons, the undead drive them back with polearms, spears, staves, etc, but don't follow.

Obviously, whoever or whatever is in charge of the place wants the "visitors" to move somewhere specific.

One entire PC mage worth of offensive spells later... nearly 600 skeletons have been vaporized and have had the spaces filled in by the literally thousands of former city residents moving up into position.

At this point, the PCs begin to be creative.

Generally speaking, they got creative well before then in other scenarios where grinding one's face against a superior foe was not the best option, but this was an extreme case of "I have newer bigger booms, I can defeat ANYTHING!" on their part.


PS: This thread reminds me of a song from the elder days of the Net on a D&D usenet thread...

"Forty-eight Blue and Grey Slaad at the door,
Forty-eight Blue and Grey Slaad,
Take one down, they gate in two more,
Forty-nine Blue and Grey Slaad at the door..."

 

[jdrakeh]

In the default setting of Rolemaster (Shadow World) almost all undead are handled like this, as the animating force of undead creatures (the Unlife or Iron Wind) is a magical effect that plagues the entire setting. I think it has best been spelled out (mechanically) in the latest Master Atlas.

It was one of those arguably minor tweaks that initially made Rolemaster really stand out to me as being different from D&D. A relatively small group of something like skeletons or zombies in Rolemaster can be a real life-threatening menace, even without the Arms Law combat (throw that in and it's a whole different kind of combat.)

I've tried to port the concept of 'returning undead' to D&D a few times, but it has always met with resistance (I think, maybe, because many players are so familiar with things like skeletons and zombies posing no real threat).

 

[The_Warlock]

Interesting default paradigm for undead.

I've used self-reanimating undead many times throughout my campaigns. While never the default, it was often enough that my PCs learned to keep fire, acid, or spells which would utterly annihilate the remains of undead on hand....just in case.

 

[Christian]

I've used self-reanimating undead many times throughout my campaigns.

Shades of the Bleakborn ...

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, I've had an encounter invoving several sniping fey and two treants. The treants stayed out of sight and just kept animating trees. After the party had destroyed about two dozen trees (and all of the other fey), they got suspicious and started to fan out until their best spotter finally found one of the treants.

All in all it was a fun encounter. It started out as an ambush and things looked dire for a couple of rounds. Then the casters concentrated on taking out the fey, one at a time, while the fighters engaged the trees. The fighters developed a certain rythm and managed to cut down a tree almost every round. Just as things started to get a bit boring (and the healer ran out of spells) they finally figured out there had to be someone responsible for animating the trees.

In the current adventure there's also an encounter (trap) involving an altar/gate summoning dread wraiths - initially one for each good-aligned character within the desecrated area. As long as the altar/gate is functional, the wraiths will keep coming.
Considering how well they dealt with the last two encounter traps, I don't think they'll have a difficult time with this one.