One Clever Thing (in Every Encounter)

[TarionzCousin]

I have a group of experienced gamers, most with at least 20 years of regular play under their belts. They coordinate extremely well and figure things out more quickly than any group I’ve had previously. They always try to take one or two prisoners for questioning.

So I’m looking for ways to capture and keep their interest. One thing I’ve been trying to do I’m calling “One Clever Thing,” or OCT.

Basically, I am trying to include one interesting, unique, or mysterious element in every encounter. For combats, that means at least one unique element, like interesting terrain or something unexpected.


What I’ve done so far:

In the midst of a weak ambush by two dozen goblins, the PC’s (and remaining goblins) were surrounded by five dozen hobgoblins.

A fight in a snow cave vs. a unique snow-drake. The terrain was obviously treacherous, with ¼ of the squares marked as exceptionally slippery. Anyone moving over half their movement had to make a Reflex save or fall prone and slide one square toward the giant hold in the center.

A seemingly empty/quickly abandoned storage room in which an invisible quasit was hiding.

Enemies hiding behind two doors, waiting to charge the PC’s. One high-initiative PC ran and held one of the doors shut for one round. He was hit by two monsters and almost unconscious, but his action made a huge difference in the fight.

Not ambushing the PC’s with bandits when they were traveling the caravan road. Everyone was pleasantly surprised by this.

Coming up next session:

Fighting orcs in a basement of a ruin obviously “infected” by some sort of arcane hazard. They have already made at least one saving throw each. So why aren’t the orcs affected? Their shaman was prepared for this, and a dozen of his salves are laid out on a table near the basement exit stairway. Will the PC’s deduce what these are? None of them are herbalists.

The shaman has a couple dozen other dried flowers, pastes, and salves in his room, one of which is a clue for the PC’s concerning a larger plot point. I half-expect them to gather all of the shaman’s stuff for later NPC analysis.

tl;dr What is a clever twist you have included or want to use in an encounter?

 

[Razjah]

I once had the PCs fight two bulettes in a large open dungeon room...with a giant chess pieces playing a game (initiative 20 and 10). The pieces could smash into PCs and the bulettes and the frequent movement made the ranged characters keep moving to maintain line of sight. The players really liked it. They talked about if for years afterwards in my role playing games club's meetings on how to make encounters more interesting.


A beach fight with tide coming in, increasing the amount of difficult terrain. 10% chance for a strong wave that could knock people off balance for AC penalties or prone.

A dragon attacking a flying ship. It would buzz the ship while using it's breath attack to attack the sails and make the ship rock. After 2 rounds in landed, ripping off part of the railings, allowing potential PC plummeting. However, the PCs got really lucky with their attacks, using swivel cannon, and quickly dropped the dragon, as it took off. It ended up falling through part of the floor into the hold, where they kept it to sell to the mage's guild.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

Hmm...maybe:

1. Secret door opens and deposits reinforcements.
2. The lights go out at that start of round 2. Either gusts of wind blowing out torches or anti-magic effect putting out light spells.
3. I'm a huge fan of waist-high fog covering rooms. A lot of stuff can be crawling down there. Maybe legless ghouls even. S-sized players need to find high ground to see anything.
4. The one low-level minion on the outskirts or watchtower ready to blow a horn, ring bell or run to summon reinforcements (or perhaps activate a trap).
5. Portcullis falls, dividing the party. It's a classic.
6. A battlefield littered with caltrops or equivalent.

 

[Razjah]

Running combats in a hedge maze, or just large maze-like hedge area can be good. Cover, purpose for movement, choke points for melee, pushing through/burning through sections of the "walls" and varying height can add a lot.

 

[Campbell]

One of my favorite elements to employ is situations that require lateral action. I like making players make decisions about how best to deploy their resources and how best to or even if to split the party.

 

[TarionzCousin]

One of my favorite elements to employ is situations that require lateral action. I like making players make decisions about how best to deploy their resources and how best to or even if to split the party.

Interesting. Do you have any examples of this?

 

[pemerton]

I don't know how "clever" it is, but I like to use foes in waves/succession. It allows a degree of control over the encounter pacing, and allows amping up the difficulty without simply overwhelming the PCs. Because the players tend to be wary of that as part of my style, it also creates suspense at the table.

I also like enemies whom the PCs have a reason not to kill - at least for some if not all of them, because that can then lead to nice low-level intra-party tension.

 

[Starfox]

I generally try to have some side objectives besides "beat the enemy". Some examples:
* There is a macguffin you need to capture, and the monsters can throw it around.
* Prisoners to rescue
* Hostages that should not get hurt
* The PCs can't kill the creatures for some reason, they can only knock them out, or they need to run the gauntlet
* There is a trap in the room, and a set of lever that can be used to try and control it.
And so on. A side objective makes a fight a lot more interesting.

 

[Campbell]

Interesting. Do you have any examples of this?

It can be anything from being pushed apart during the tide of battle, fights in multiple rooms where you have to deal with multiple ranged adversaries, or simply placing two objectives that need to be dealt with at the same time.

In a recent L5R game I was a player where we played Scorpion clan samurai based in Beyden a Fireman gang was burning down local artisans' homes to exert protection money. At the same time there was a troubling alliance between the local daimyo and Unicorn clan dignitaries. Neither situation was one we could afford to sit on. Several members of the party were posing as ronin in order to infiltrate the Fireman's gang, but the situation at court had to be dealt with. Our shugenja had to be in court in order to cut off this alliance at the knees as well as to perform some required rituals. As her yojimbo (body guard) my duty was to be by here side to protect her. This left our compatriots to deal with the fireman's gang without their two best social characters. Our resident ninja had to carefully consider where best he could be deployed based on events unfolding in play.

On an unrelated note my biggest struggle as a player in that game was to keep my honor low, despite being the group's face.

Another recent play example comes from the skill challenge PbP me, manbearcat, pemerton, sheadunne, and Lost Soul were involved in. At the resolution of the skill challenge we found out that the troublesome chamberlain was my character Lucann's dryad lover gone dark. She ran away when discovered, but the king was still in danger from a hag who had taken on the visage of his dead wife. We split the group in half at that point. Either the dryad would have gotten away or the king would have likely died.

 

[pemerton]

Slightly more prosaic versions of "splitting the party" - I like designing 4e combat encounters with lots of space (both horizontal and vertical), and then making the players as a group have to operate across the whole of that space, therefore requiring different PCs to be in different places doing different things.

For instance, when the PCs fought Torog, several fell down the great pit that had opened up when Torog burst out of the ground. Hence the party had to operate as two "units" until they could rejoin (I think at one point the fighter PC was solo-ing Torog).

In the fight that preceded that, the PCs were in Torog's Soul Abattoir. This was a roughly circular room with a soul-filled pit at its bottom, a narrow catwalk over that to a bunch of machinery at the far end, and a perimeter walkway about 40' up the walls. The machinery was inflicting constant necrotic and psychic damage. So the PCs had to (i) get up onto the perimeter walkway to deal with the ranged attackers up there, (ii) get to the machinery along the narrow catwalk, and (iii) hold off the death titan who was at the entrance and had a very punishing 5 square radius aura. The fighter ended up solo-ing the titan for most of the fight, while the sorcerer dealt with the ranged attackers and the others concentrated on clearing the catwalk to get to the machinery.

Here're some more examples. The last (hydra) fight especially used a lot of space and "splitting".