D&D 4E Interesting/Best 4E Encounters

[jgerman]

I'm looking for the best (or most interesting) 4E encounters you've... encountered. Sometimes they're spread across threads (See the good commend in the PoS thread). I have quite a bit of 4E material I haven't read yet (everything by WotC, every adventure by GG, among others), and I'm willing to mine ideas from other systems.

My problem is we meet every three weeks so in order to combat the slog I'm making extra efforts to make every encounter interesting and meaningful.

So what were the most fun and interesting encounters you guys have run into?

 

[RangerWickett]

I had a dragon-slaying mini-campaign where I put a lot of effort into the three dragon encounters. Each had a different theme.

1. The dragon's lair is the lightless tomb of a god whose gaze could drive men mad, so if you had a light source, you took psychic damage that compounded rapidly. The dragon had darkvision, and could set people on fire, turning them into light sources, so the fight had the potential for lots of dynamic usage of light as a weapon.


2. The second dragon had a cult in a desert canyon. Getting to him required white water rafting, including a scene where monsters attacked in a gauntlet near the rapids. The dragon himself was a leper necromancer, so every 1/4 of total HP he took, a piece fell off that animated and kept attacking.


3. The third dragon had wind powers, and the party fought it from an airship. The situation was complicated by an ulterior motive; the party was accompanied by an NPC who they had to assassinate. Or rather, they had to ensure he died, without tipping off his crew who were flying the ship.


Great fun all around. I got help on a few threads here, if you want to see details.

[sblock]Details here - http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/258093-tonights-game-help.html

Anecdotes and ideas here - http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/254249-white-water-rafting-11th-level.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/256821-thwarted-instant-campsite.html

Two dragons I used statted out here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/257250-wazir-ghul-khota-leper-dragon.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/257564-lsi-rae-bo-lord-four-winds.html

[/sblock]

 

[Henry]

I'm looking for the best (or most interesting) 4E encounters you've... encountered. Sometimes they're spread across threads (See the good commend in the PoS thread). I have quite a bit of 4E material I haven't read yet (everything by WotC, every adventure by GG, among others), and I'm willing to mine ideas from other systems.

My problem is we meet every three weeks so in order to combat the slog I'm making extra efforts to make every encounter interesting and meaningful.

So what were the most fun and interesting encounters you guys have run into?

My personal favorite was the very first climactic encounter in 4E I ever ran -- the setup was a pillared hall in a dungeon, where the floor was extremely weak because the pillars on the floor below it were knocked out from a huge battle a thousand years ago. A battalion of Shaarat'kor(?) had tracked the PCs to this holy of holies they were desecrating in a search for loot, so the battle began.

As the battle raged, the floor gave way a few squares at a time, to a 30-foot drop onto piles of rubble below. It wasn't a death-defying thing unless they were within one or two squares of the edge, and you better believe me they tried to stay away from the edge as much as possible! There were at least two good instances of the fighter shoving someone off the edge, and the warlock using his magic to rip someone over the side...

 

[Atras]

So what were the most fun and interesting encounters you guys have run into?

In the second part of Scales of War: The Siege of Bordrin's Watch, there are a handful of really excellent encounters.

Spoilers for those of you playing in it and not yet past part 2
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Into the Depths Dungeon Magazine #157 page 34
Dangerous plummeting open staircase with a large group of enemies below - some of whom are armed with giant crossbows that can push players around. Add in a flying drake to mess with characters who try to stay at range, and a party without a nice mix of classes can have real problems with this encounter. The drake has an ability to grab small objects and steal them - useful for making wand-using characters fear for their implement.

Chamber of Works Dungeon Magazine #157 page 36
This fight is against an elite, a controller and some minions, plus it features a brutal fire that jumps to adjacent targets, and there is a wounded Dwarf to save at the same time. Pure tactical goodness, with the controller actually being a bigger threat than the elite if ignored, and a way to have the battle fail without killing the players (the Dwarf's life).

The Nexus Dungeon Magazine #157 page 49
The map can be a little hard to wrap your head around, but an essentially infinite number of enemies, combined with perilous drops and a nasty Elite Soldier stopping the characters from reaching the final goal makes for a wonderfully memorable and challenging fight.

 

[Ktulu]

check out Gabe's falling encounter from Penny Arcade - Rightsizing epic.

I had a purple-worm attack a castle during a queen's coronation, the resulting shockwaves from it erupting from the ground damaged the pillars holding the room together. The party could both fight the worm, or try and knock pillars down upon it. Also, when the worm burrowed, the floor gave way, leaving massive holes to maneuver around. It was a lot of fun.

 

[weem]

Yea, there have been a few of these some of which I posted encounters in already so I will try and keep these short...

One

This one is actually from a post of mine on RPGnet...

I had one where the PC's were in a Fort that was sentient and could manipulate various rooms and walls. They went up against a solo construct I made in one particular room. The construct would bend down from time to time (on recharge) and lock his hands into the floor (they would temporarily meld into the floor) and the room would swivel a random direction @ 45 degrees. The players had to make (iirc) an Athletics roll to remain in control (not fall prone), and then a STR check to hold tight - otherwise you would slide in a straight line to the tipped side and take falling damage (and fall prone) at which point the room would correct, and the construct would stand.

I thought it was an interesting way to have the creature roll recharge, and yet the ability represented intervention from the Fort (by tilting the room). The players loved it.

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Two



I want to (and will do) at some point this encounter that I thought of based on a Rush Hour movie (first one I think) - one where, in the Museum, the enemies push over the ancient Chinese vases, etc. In the encounter, like in the movie, the PC's will want these to not be broken of course, but if they do break, they leave difficult terrain in the area.

So mobs push these artifacts (when not attacking them directly) towards the players to hit them (for damage) or away from them to distract them (knowing the PC's will try to save the artifacts). The mobs will have the ability to push an artifact as a recharge power (5,6).

In the case below, the enemy (E) could push the artifact (X) on top of the player (P) or in the square North or South of the player...

0 0 0 0 0
0 P X E 0
0 0 0 0 0

In other words, the opposite square from the enemy or one of the two squares on either side of that (all marked below with a - ) which are also adjacent to the artifact...

0 - 0 P 0
0 - X E 0
0 - 0 0 0

or

0 - - 0 0
0 - X 0 0
0 0 P E 0

or

0 0 E 0 0
0 0 X P 0
0 - - - 0

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Three


I once ran an encounter where an NPC needed to cast this cleansing ritual. He also needed someone to read from a scroll while he did this. This would be an attempt to cleanse this dark orb and seal a portal it was keeping open near it.

But also, he needed people to stand in very specific places (squares) and not leave those squares.

He began and things started to come out of the portal (in this case these crazy Dire Crows I made way back last year before the Monster Builder etc). So, the one reading the scroll had to continue reading, despite being attacked (and had to roll to keep from being interrupted). The others could fight, but again, could not leave their square. Eventually he finished the cleansing and yelled that one person could now move about, but the rest had to stay and the one reading the scroll had to keep reading - at that moment a few demons came out (forgot what I used) so the Fighter (who decided he should be the mobile one) jumped in and tried to keep them off the NPC, etc.

Anyway, that was a fun one as well.

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Four



This is one I am about to run (Brad L and Aaron C skip this)...

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The players are in a pocket dimension that exists "within" a powerful NPC (one they interact with from time to time, though he doesn't help/hinder them really). Within this dimension, he has control over most things, but he is currently very ill and so things are getting a little twisted and they can't get out until they help him.

The players need to travel to a temple (still inside the NPC's dimension) that (for the NPC) represents hope - it's his memory of a temple that once contained a fountain of healing energy. Anyway, on their way there in a carriage, they will be attacked by dark figures riding on the back of what would look like a giraffe. These 'giraffe' creatures however have trunks like an elephant and will, while running along side the cart, be tugging at the wheels trying to make it crash. So there will be those to fend off, plus the cart must be driven (aimed) to avoid obstacles that, if hit, could cause players to fall prone on top of the cart, etc. Stopping will be bad as there will be hordes of things chasing them that can only maintain the same speed as the cart (or less).

 

[Electric Wizard]

The players fought a blue dragon while running down a narrow staircase that clung to the sides of a wide shaft. The party lacked serious ranged power, so they were forced to come up with creative ways to draw the dragon closer to the stairs. They had to be inventive with formations too, because spreading out made it easier to avoid lightning breath, but at the same time made it difficult for healing or performing group attacks. After an intense half hour, the sorcerer broke a high-powered fire bomb on his nose that almost killed off the paty. Meanwhile, the paladin that was still a level or two above everyone else used his boots of spider climb to charge vertically down the shaft and crush the dragon's skull as it reeled from the blast.

It was the stuff of X-Box 360 trailers.

 

[Wik]

I think the one my Players loved the most was in an underground temple in the centre of this ancient city that had sunken into the earth. The city was the site of an ongoing battle between wraith-like undead creatures (the previous inhabitants of the city, who had mostly been killed when the city was swallowed up by the earth) versus constructs that seemed to be sentient and had forged themselves through accumulating debris (I got the idea from a Pathfinder adventure).

Anyways, the PCs seemed to be pulled towards the central temple, and wound up getting into a fight with these "shadow goblins" (Dark Creepers, from Sceptre Tower) and a Dracolich. The encounter was fun because as the dracolich attacked, it knocked out pillars, and parts of the roof began to collapse, which kept the combat moving. And then the dwarven cleric (whose player loves doing weird things) decided to deliberately collapse the temple upon himself and the dracolich. It was a fun fight.