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<blockquote data-quote="NthDegree256" data-source="post: 4949023" data-attributes="member: 62427"><p>Loving this thread! Here's a fight of mine that I think worked pretty well.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Scenario:</strong> Spider Caves (adapted and expanded from encounters C5a and C5b in Eyes of the Lich Queen)</p><p> </p><p>[sblock]<strong>XP Encounter Difficulty:</strong> Level 13 (against level 11 PCs.)</p><p> </p><p><strong>Brief Summary:</strong> The party plunges into a dark, cobweb-filled cave and finds a host of spiders big and small, as well as some web-covered zombies, waiting to greet them. Some of the zombies are filled to the brim with spiders and might become even more dangerous when slain!</p><p> </p><p><strong>Area Setup:</strong> A deep cave with a few twisting and looping passages; I segmented it out onto 4 sheets of paper with bottlenecks at each edge of the page, so I could leave parts of the cave unrevealed until a PC got close enough to take a look. Sticky webs that could be destroyed, but otherwise required a skill check to move through at full speed without becoming Restrained, coated the edges of the room and cut off a few of the passageways. Enemies could move through the terrain without hindrance.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Enemies:</strong></p><p>(all monsters were custom-built, even if they happen to sound like or were based upon existing monsters)</p><p>1 giant spider (level 11 elite controllers)</p><p>2 tomb spiders (level 9 skirmishers)</p><p>12 web husk zombies (level 7 minion soldiers)</p><p>3 special web zombies - they were a different-colored mini, and upon dying, each turned into a spider swarm (level 7 soldier swarm)</p><p> </p><p><strong>Enemy Setup: </strong>A few scattered web zombies and a tomb spider were initially visible. The other zombies trickled in from one direction in the cave, while the remaing big spiders crawled in through the other path. </p><p> </p><p><strong>How it went:</strong> The party didn't get much of a reason to venture deeper into the cave until some of the spiders began retreating back into the shadows when injured - I had to expend a little extra effort on making the fight mobile rather than making the monsters operate at peak tactical efficiency, which I thought was a fine tradeoff. </p><p> </p><p>My major goal for the fight succeeded, though; after the PCs blew up the first special web zombie, they quickly figured out that they DIDN'T want to deal with any more swarms if they didn't have to, and so when the second and third special web zombies showed up, they went out of their way to ignore them and avoid killing them. This was exactly what I was hoping would happen, so I was quite happy with that <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> . The last action the big spider took before dying was to go and pop the one remaining special zombie <em>herself</em>.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Actual Difficulty:</strong> Probably lower than a straight-up encounter of the same level could have been. In the end, the PCs got through the fight with a few expended surges and dailies, but no severe losses or near-death experiences. I'm fine with that, I bled off some of the tactical advantages in favor of keeping the fight moving and the enemies suitably skittery.</p><p> </p><p><strong>How well did it work:</strong> I'd put it at, uh, 8.5. I wish I had come up with a better way to get the PCs to run through the cave with the giant spider hot on their heels (ala Shelob), but the bursting web zombies was a good way to make it so that the PCs could make the fight easier on themselves by paying attention, and it worked exactly as planned.[/sblock]</p><p> </p><p>I feel like I should also post an example of a fight that had a good apparent setup but worked out poorly in practice; if I find one trawling the archives of my campaign, I'll post it. Examples of what <em>not </em>to do are just as useful as examples of what works.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="NthDegree256, post: 4949023, member: 62427"] Loving this thread! Here's a fight of mine that I think worked pretty well. [B]Scenario:[/B] Spider Caves (adapted and expanded from encounters C5a and C5b in Eyes of the Lich Queen) [sblock][B]XP Encounter Difficulty:[/B] Level 13 (against level 11 PCs.) [B]Brief Summary:[/B] The party plunges into a dark, cobweb-filled cave and finds a host of spiders big and small, as well as some web-covered zombies, waiting to greet them. Some of the zombies are filled to the brim with spiders and might become even more dangerous when slain! [B]Area Setup:[/B] A deep cave with a few twisting and looping passages; I segmented it out onto 4 sheets of paper with bottlenecks at each edge of the page, so I could leave parts of the cave unrevealed until a PC got close enough to take a look. Sticky webs that could be destroyed, but otherwise required a skill check to move through at full speed without becoming Restrained, coated the edges of the room and cut off a few of the passageways. Enemies could move through the terrain without hindrance. [B]Enemies:[/B] (all monsters were custom-built, even if they happen to sound like or were based upon existing monsters) 1 giant spider (level 11 elite controllers) 2 tomb spiders (level 9 skirmishers) 12 web husk zombies (level 7 minion soldiers) 3 special web zombies - they were a different-colored mini, and upon dying, each turned into a spider swarm (level 7 soldier swarm) [B]Enemy Setup: [/B]A few scattered web zombies and a tomb spider were initially visible. The other zombies trickled in from one direction in the cave, while the remaing big spiders crawled in through the other path. [B]How it went:[/B] The party didn't get much of a reason to venture deeper into the cave until some of the spiders began retreating back into the shadows when injured - I had to expend a little extra effort on making the fight mobile rather than making the monsters operate at peak tactical efficiency, which I thought was a fine tradeoff. My major goal for the fight succeeded, though; after the PCs blew up the first special web zombie, they quickly figured out that they DIDN'T want to deal with any more swarms if they didn't have to, and so when the second and third special web zombies showed up, they went out of their way to ignore them and avoid killing them. This was exactly what I was hoping would happen, so I was quite happy with that :) . The last action the big spider took before dying was to go and pop the one remaining special zombie [I]herself[/I]. [B]Actual Difficulty:[/B] Probably lower than a straight-up encounter of the same level could have been. In the end, the PCs got through the fight with a few expended surges and dailies, but no severe losses or near-death experiences. I'm fine with that, I bled off some of the tactical advantages in favor of keeping the fight moving and the enemies suitably skittery. [B]How well did it work:[/B] I'd put it at, uh, 8.5. I wish I had come up with a better way to get the PCs to run through the cave with the giant spider hot on their heels (ala Shelob), but the bursting web zombies was a good way to make it so that the PCs could make the fight easier on themselves by paying attention, and it worked exactly as planned.[/sblock] I feel like I should also post an example of a fight that had a good apparent setup but worked out poorly in practice; if I find one trawling the archives of my campaign, I'll post it. Examples of what [I]not [/I]to do are just as useful as examples of what works. [/QUOTE]
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