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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 9528164" data-attributes="member: 9254">I agree with [USER=907]@Staffan[/USER] that the same encounters over a wider area would change the pacing and make it feel less of house-to-house combat.  To use the Water temple as an example, have it be a series of outposts along a river. You have a couple of elites supported by a squad or two of mooks.  The different creatures can live in different parts of the river (marsh vs deep pools vs rapids, etc) which goes along with the "not full fledged allies" aspect.You could make Tyar-Besil like a whole mountain complex that mostly collapsed and these four widely disparate temples were some of the old entrances that can get down to the old Underdark levels.  It's still anchored to one place but it can put miles between cults except at the heart of the mountain.  Also means each cult would be targeting a completely different region.If Tyr is in a 10,000ft tall mountain, it could readily be 5-10 miles across at the base with an "as the crow flies" circumference of 15-30 miles in the foot hills but a road circumference of 100+ miles .  Given that scale, it would be plausible for PCs not to realize the cults were connected at first.  Their areas of interest could be a hundred miles apart, in different terrains and political zones.   Put the mountain near the coast and the Water cult could be focused on seafaring mayhem, Earth could focus on dwarven cities & the underdark, Fire for the farmlands and crops, while Air has a thing for generating storms that hit down-wind.The geography of the mountain side allows different cultists to possibly have allies not only uphill/downhill but also east-west, and the frenemies would get close the higher you get.  Maybe an air outposts can see a water or fire camp down-mountain, and the monks could kite themselves in as paratroopers if they felt like it.  Water could possibly divert the river uphill and cause a mud slide.  Earth can cause avalanches and fire might have a lava trebuchet, who knows.  These are probably intended as ways to harass their frenemies with the thinnest veneer of "in case you need help."In this layout players could slog up one path, maybe two, but then when they realize the other temples are likely at a similar elevation they could skip past whole swaths of the lower defenders to go for the elites.  It creates a plausible reason how the PCs could bypass tedious mook fights and get to the important stuff.</blockquote>

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