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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DanmarLOK" data-source="post: 4976862" data-attributes="member: 71480">Here's another one - The party is on the trail of reavers and comes across a strange campsite...[sblock]XP Encounter Difficulty: Level 6 Moderate/Hard encounter versus 5 level 6 PC's.   Brief summary: The party is chasing raiders that have been ransacking villages in a swatch of destruction.  The raiders have recently been reduced in numbers, wiping out the lord's guards in the process, but are still quite powerful.    Area setup: Rolling tundra, knee high grasses, copses of small brush and plenty of ravines both minor and major.    Enemies:(these are custom monsters in the 5th to 7th range, nothing spectacular you could use any humanoids/beasts in the same range)6 Reaver Thugs (soldier minions) 3 Chuk's Level (wolf/wolverine like creatures standard skirmishers)2 Reaver Archers (standard artillery)1 Reaver Leader (elite artillery)  Enemy setup: The reaver's know about the pursuing PC's.  They've set up an ambush with a partial squad.  They've tied three of their captives together.  Set at three points around the captives are three Chuks, savage animals that have all the worst traits of wolves and wolverines and bigger teeth.  The chuks are staked to the ground on chains that keep them just out of reach of the captives.  A single bedroll lays next to a fire with an open backpack.   Under the bedroll in a shallow pit lies one of the Thugs.  The bedroll appears empty.   In a vantage spot, well hidden in natural cover lie the other reavers.   The reaver leader will signal at the most opportune time and the reaver under the bedroll will leap out and start freeing the chuks.  One per turn.  The chuk's will go after the captives unless pulled off with damage or marks.  At the same time the artillery will open up from cover.  If the PC's go after the artillery the minions will burst out of cover and use their cudgels against the pc's.  The cudgels have an encounter special effect depending on where they hit (thug's choice) of dazing (head), knocking prone ('vitals'), slowing (kneecap) or sliding (chest).    How it went: Not too bad really but not too well for the party.  The party was of course suspicious and hung back.  This was to be the doom of two of the captives.  When they opened fire on one of the chuks from range the leader signaled the minion to start freeing the chuks.  Thanks to some misses he was able to free two of the chuks. These started ripping the captives up while the bowmen opened up from across the area.  Indecision and their distance from the captives lead to them not pulling the chuk's off the captives in time before two were killed.  They put the two freed chuk's down but lost the shaman in the process from the artillery fire who was down and dying.   Racing over to the artillery the thugs came out and slowed them down which gave the artillery another round of fire.  This cost them the monk who went down dying.   The warden, sorcerer and seeker though bloodied were able to finish off the artillery.  The sorcerer was able to use her daily inspiring word to recover the shaman who summoned his spirit and recovered the monk.  By then they were down to the elite and it was mop up duty. He eventually tried to surrender but the warden and seeker both had lost family to the reavers and he ended up frozen to death with spiders eating him from the inside out. (winters grasp and spider spirits)    Actual Difficulty: Within reason.  If they'd of started the combat by moving closer rather than trying to take the chuk's out at extreme range they could most likely have killed the thug before it released the beasts or pulled the beasts off the captives.  They also split fire during that round some trying for the minion, other's trying for the chuk's and the ones shooting at the minion missed so he was able to free two of the chuks before he was dropped.  How well did it work(on a scale of 1-10): I would rate it an 8.  The characters were pretty broken up they'd cost two captives their lives with their actions or lack of them and realized that the encounter could have easily gone a different way and all three might have been alive.  They're now filled with even more resolve to track the reavers down and destroy them.  Unfortunately for them, there are more reavers left even after the big ass whuppin they took from the lord's guards than they think...[/sblock]</blockquote>

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