Quick Encounter Rooms... would you use this?

[keterys]

Well, you can simplify it as a Hazard - so maybe it's not a blade trap, but a falling stalactite or there's some sorta creature nesting in a hole in the wall that tries to take a bite out of someone who stops there, but not otherwise.

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

The big thing is just the map itself. Most people have trouble coming up with original or exciting encounter maps. They would have the ability to populate it with whatever, but creating maps on the fly would give them issues.

I wold say having a map by itself, with at least inclusion of difficult terrain, would be the best way to go and perhaps have a notes section to the side but nothing already placed down so that they could change things as they see fit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There is always a need for quick encounter areas. What I would suggest perhaps is something like indicate hazards and such, and then indicate locations which might be used for traps or other additional stuff. DMs can always ignore/change those suggestions if they really want to.

A companion piece would be to provide a list of set piece encounters. The ones in the MM are often pretty reasonable, but you have to go look them up, etc and there is no index of encounters in there. Using the DMG encounter templates you could provide say 20 rooms and 20 encounters of each template (Dragon's Lair, Gauntlet, etc). That would give a pretty wide variety of combinations people could quickly use. Every room certainly wouldn't be appropriate to each encounter, but chances are for a given party a DM could pretty quickly pull out one of each that worked. If the encounter includes traps, then they can go on the map in suggested locations, or the DM can just wing that, things don't have to match up 100% perfectly.

4e tends to emphasize a pretty structured approach to campaign and encounter design, but we have all wished from time to time we had something quick to fill in a hole in the map or give a party something more to do.

 

[Rechan]

What Keterys said - a trap doesn't have to be a mechanical device, it can very well be a natural hazard. Doomspore, etc.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

As an additional suggestion, these maps should not usually have a grid on them. It allows for rescaling and such. The cross hairs work OK, but it seems like it cold be tempting to add a full grid.

I use these kinds of things all the time. I get free stuff like maps and encounter descriptions from the internet, then modify to my tastes. It works great.

So my list of good things for these would be:

1) Nice maps, no inherent scale if not necessary for the map.
2) Description of the setup and why it is interesting.
3) Interesting terrain setup including difficult terrain and hazards as well as areas of strategic advantage.
4) Suggested encounters in 4e, but keep the main product free of system and level specific details. Keep the map just a map. No monsters or traps specifically placed on the map.
5) Free. I am a cheap bastard. I appreciate good works, but it is almost impossible to separate me from the little money I have. I give credit and feedback to those people that provide my game materials.

Thanks in advance for starting this project. I hope it works out well.

 

[darjr]

I do like the format. If someone were to do something like this the single encounter format sounds like a winner.

 

[77IM]

I wouldn't find generic maps very useful. I can make maps with traps and hazardous terrain on them just fine.

What I do find difficult is mixing the traps/hazards with monsters in a way that is interesting. If these maps came with suggestions for monster types, that might be very useful. For example, "Place some artillery-role monsters at location C, and players might charge them, triggering the pit trap," or, "A large brute monster could block the corridor between 1 and 2; if there's a troublesome leader or artillery monster behind him in room 2, it could force the PCs to crawl through the side tunnel to reach monster in room 2." That level of interaction -- a creative and interesting encounter framework rather than just a map -- would be great.

You could even suggest specific monsters at certain levels (for example, present a level 1, level 4, and level 8 encounter). For major bonus points, include monster stat blocks, so that I can just print it and go. You could even leave this step up to the community! ("I used the 'Forest Ruins' map last night with these monsters in these positions and it worked great...")

-- 77IM

 

[weem]

I wouldn't find generic maps very useful. I can make maps with traps and hazardous terrain on them just fine.

What I do find difficult is mixing the traps/hazards with monsters in a way that is interesting. If these maps came with suggestions for monster types, that might be very useful. For example, "Place some artillery-role monsters at location C, and players might charge them, triggering the pit trap," or, "A large brute monster could block the corridor between 1 and 2; if there's a troublesome leader or artillery monster behind him in room 2, it could force the PCs to crawl through the side tunnel to reach monster in room 2." That level of interaction -- a creative and interesting encounter framework rather than just a map -- would be great.

You could even suggest specific monsters at certain levels (for example, present a level 1, level 4, and level 8 encounter). For major bonus points, include monster stat blocks, so that I can just print it and go. You could even leave this step up to the community! ("I used the 'Forest Ruins' map last night with these monsters in these positions and it worked great...")

-- 77IM

Thanks for the feedback...

This gets into the aspect of having to know the ins and outs / legalities of the wotc stuff (what I can/can't use, and how to use it) which is beyond me right now and beyond my desire to learn at the moment (regarding putting in stat blocks and monsters, etc).

But this did give me an idea. I saw something about Monte Cook linking to stuff in the SRD (for his dungeonaday)... so I could do this as a web based thing and suggest/link to monsters... a page for each location etc and you could just download the map itself... then there could be comments after with various builds people used, etc.

Interesting...


[edit] Just remembered that was for 3e (Monte's thing) - still like the idea of going to the web with it - as if I don't already have enough websites [/edit]

 

[77IM]

Yeah, the legal issue is why I suggest you focus on generic monster roles and let the community come up with the specifics for now. It also helps with cross-platform -- most games have notions of big, tough monsters, sneaky monsters, ranged-attack monsters, etc.

I'm pretty sure that you can reference 4e monsters by name without any trouble, but IANAL and even if something is totally legal it can sometimes become costly to defend yourself in court so I understand your trepidation.

-- 77IM

 

[weem]

Yea, the roles are probably a good way to go - because even if I used the 4e terminology of "striker", "defender", "artillery", etc I think many (most?) understand (basically) what that translates to with regards to these kinds of games and regardless of system.

Much to think about now.