Making a 3.5 encounter with a Roc run the way I want it to (Snatch and Spot problems)

[Noumenon]

I haven't run a Solo monster yet in my game and I thought a Roc would be great because its flying would eliminate the "toe-to-toe slugging" effect. I had images of an encounter in a canyon where the PCs would take cover behind spires, hide in caves, and climb up the walls to jump onto the creature's back.

When I ran the encounter in prep, though, it turned out to go like this:

• Roc flies 15 feet away from any melee character so they can't touch it
• Roc swipes with a talon and hits because of its +21 to hit
• Roc auto-grapples with its +37 and begins to do auto talon damage with Snatch.
• No hope for the character. Grease isn't enough for the grapple, Freedom of Movement is a touch spell, small Air Elementals are too weak, the party uses Spider Climb instead of Fly.

Even if I give the Roc slightly stupider tactics like stopping to grab two characters at once, it still has enough HP to survive and a high enough Grapple to ignore the -20 penalty for holding instead of grappling. I'm not going to make it just land on the ground and start brawling. That's what every other monster does -- that's why I wanted to run a Roc instead.

If the battle is going to go this way, then my plan for the encounter is going to be "the Roc carries away one character at a time back to its nest, and eventually it pushes its luck or the characters track it and kill it. Oh, and in the defile that the nest overlooks you see the Nightfang Spire (module)."

The problems with this approach are:

• As a player, I would be pretty consternated if a monster auto-hit, auto-grappled, auto-damaged and flew away with me. I would feel like the DM was dropping rocks on my head with no save.
• What makes the most sense is for the Roc to squeeze you until you are dying, then let up (assuming my goal is finding a way to keep a player alive once Snatched). But I have no guarantee the player would stabilize after this, or be smart enough to go limp beforehand.
• There's really no reason for the encounter to happen at all now. The only tactic the party has that can work is to hide/go invisible/retreat into a cave, so they will, and then there's no fight.

I'm also a little confused by how to handle a Hide strategy. First, what is the DC to notice a Gargantuan creature in the air? It should be like -10. The maximum Spot distance in the DMG is for Plains at 6d6*40 (760 ft). But with a -1 penalty for each 10 feet of distance, it would be impossible to spot anything at that distance.

Anyway, a Roc is never going to win an opposed Spot check versus a whole party, so the party will always have time to hide and the encounter will never happen. I should have the encounter in a canyon where the party looks up and sees the Roc crossing overhead, it sees them and then circles around to attack. I like the visual of that because the shadow and bulk of a roc right overhead should be very impressive.

 

[Shroomy]

I've developed an encounter similar to this for a mid-level 3.5e party. My solutions:

1. Its a hell of a lot scarier if a huge roc swoops out of the sky and circles the PCs out of range, casting its shadow on them. Basically, I didn't sweat the Hide vs. Spot factor.

2. Go for the pack animals and mounts first.

 

[Noumenon]

Pack animals would be great targets if they had any because you can't Hide those. A sorcerer could, I was going to say, but I just realized by posting this that Invisibility takes way too many rounds to hide everyone. So as long as I don't offer the party easily available cover for Hide I should be able to force the encounter on them.

 

[Noumenon]

I am stealing your shadow idea, by the way. The canyon goes dark!

So how did you avoid Snatch killing everyone? Did you just have the roc land and slug it out? Did your party have better spells like Fly?

 

[Shroomy]

I never got to actually run the encounter, but the roc was essentially looking for food and would target the mounts, pack animals, and animal companions first. If it came under serious attack, it would attack defensively, but it wasn't trying to actively snatch the PCs unless it had no other choice.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Get inspiration from the classic Sinbad films - the Roc picks him up and carries him to the nest where he is dropped to feed the chicks (foes more his size, whom he can fight with) and then attempt his escape from the rocky crag.

Or see the recent Sinbad cartoon - same kind of issue. The Roc becomes the encounter setup rather than the encounter battle.

Cheers

 

[I'm A Banana]

my plan for the encounter is going to be "the Roc carries away one character at a time back to its nest, and eventually it pushes its luck or the characters track it and kill it. Oh, and in the defile that the nest overlooks you see the Nightfang Spire (module).

Well, this is basically introducing a combat encounter that you don't really want the players to win (at least, not at first), am I right?

In my case, I would ditch the idea to throw them into the adventure by having them abducted. It's no fun for the PC's if it goes "right," and it's no fun for you if it goes "wrong" (generally speaking, of course, I don't know your party).

Anyway, a Roc is never going to win an opposed Spot check versus a whole party, so the party will always have time to hide and the encounter will never happen.

With a fly speed of 80, a roc can outrun horses. It doesn't need to be unseen. It doesn't matter if it is seen. In an open field, miles around in every direction, anything out in the open is a sitting duck.

Alternately, in a mountain canyon or somesuch, the roc can grab PCs off of exposed ledges, or ambush them as they come out of a cave. I would think that a roc would naturally wait until its prey is either isolated on a peak or in an open field with no chance of escape before it swoops down to pluck up something delicious.

I haven't run a Solo monster yet in my game and I thought a Roc would be great because its flying would eliminate the "toe-to-toe slugging" effect. I had images of an encounter in a canyon where the PCs would take cover behind spires, hide in caves, and climb up the walls to jump onto the creature's back.

It's a cool scene, but it's more of an scene than a combat. If you want to run a combat with a roc, and get them into the module, I would suggest that the roc take someone or something that has something important with it, so tracking down the roc's nest to get said thing back becomes the agenda.

If you're more interested in the scene, I would completely abandon the idea of running it like a combat, and instead run it like a series of skill checks. Keep the AC, saves, and HP of the critter handy, and it's skill modifiers and initiative, but you won't need much else.

Now, you set the scene. PC's are wandering through a canyon when, suddenly, around the bend in front of them, swoops that enormous bird that they saw the shadow of earlier. Its wingspan nearly fills the canyon, and it is gunning straight for them!

• A hide check may let them dive into a cave to avoid it as it passes (but it'll pass again!)
• An Initiative check might let them run around the corner (but it's gaining fast!)
• A Climb check might get them out of the line of fire.
• If they fail, they take damage from the claw attack and get snatched up, but the Roc continues to fight the rest, and any time a PC scores a hit, it drops the one it has and attacks the new one!

Or something like that. Keep it flowing, don't have the Roc take turns, just have it react on a failure by the PC. Abstracting it like this can make things a bit more dynamic, and it doesn't need to squeeze and run off with them if you just want a cool scene out of it.

The more giant monsters have always been a little tough to run as monsters in my mind. It's fun to run them as scenes, though.

 

[Noumenon]

Plane Sailing, I like your idea about the roc chicks. There would be the adrenaline of a solo combat and it gives the reason why the roc is bothering to pick up tiny little Medium creatures that would barely make a mouthful.

Well, this is basically introducing a combat encounter that you don't really want the players to win (at least, not at first), am I right?

No, I intended it to be a regular CR 9 encounter for a level 9 party. It was only after I found the party couldn't win that I started thinking "How can I keep this encounter without killing everybody?" Then I thought of the story angle, and without even realizing it I'd created a railroad, like you say. But the adventure could start anywhere, it's OK for them to kill the roc.

it's more of an scene than a combat.

This seems really deep. At first I took it as a criticism, like I had meant to create an encounter and instead just created a cut scene. I am kind of a "director" style DM, so that can happen. But I can see you enjoy "scenes" and have kind of a unique way of dealing with them, so what you're really saying is "Don't be locked into 'combat or roleplaying.' There's a third option where you can do some cool action without counting hit points."

I am a little invested in having the actual grid-style combat because I already drew a map and spent like half an hour looking up the flying rules and writing stuff on a 3x5 card like "single move, max up angle: 40 forward, 40 up (can't be a steeper angle because of minimum forward speed)." I know it's dumb to learn these rules and I should just have fun and switch to 4E, but the fun of being the one who learns all the weird rules is the players might never have had a combat like this before. Though like you say, a rules-light "scene" would probably deliver most of the actual fun.

 

[wedgeski]

Plane Sailing, I like your idea about the roc chicks...

Mmmmm, roc chicks.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I would suggest modifying the Roc a bit. I recently ran a 3.5 combat that included a similar flying critter with many of the same troubles.


What I would suggest is the story line of the Roc trying to 'save up' some meals for its hungry chick by tossing them into a nice little pit...that way it can take more than one back to its nest.

But like trying to stuff worms back into the can, the pit should allow the PC's to get back into the fight in one or two rounds.

Swap out the Snatch ability for:
Fling:
When the Roc hits with a claw attack, it can fling the target up to 30 feet in the general direction it is traveling.

This way you can have the Roc circling back and forth, trying to shove the PC's into the 'box' without having to deal with the whole Grapple dilemna.

For some fun tension, let the players know that the last man out of the 'box' will get hauled off to the nest...unless a trapped PC can get out.


I would also give the Roc about a 75% chance of hitting your medium armored guy... kinda clean up the 'DM wants to kill us' feeling.


And a warning... 3.5 doesnt do solo combat well. You end up with too many actions on the PCs side. Even 207 hps can go really fast.
It might make a better fight to have the chicks be adolescents involved in the combat that strike prone PCs..after mommy has knocked the PC over for them.