D&D 5E (2014) Reverse Time Combat

[TaranTheWanderer]

I like the idea of having limited spell slots. I also like the idea of bargaining for slots. I expect this encounter might need some more straightforward interactive elements.

So, at the beginning of the encounter, after they have been introduced to the scene, I would ask the spellcasters to reveal how many spells they cast in this encounter. They will be bound to cast that number of spells.

Ehh, something doesn't feel right.

I might have each spell caster roll a 1d4 and that is how many spells they must cast in the encounter. If they cast anymore they will lose extra spell slots at the end of the encounter, one for each they went over the roll. This puts a little more game into it. Too much?

they can only cast one spell per round until all the guards run back out of the room so it doesn’t really matter how many slots they have or don’t have, doesn’t it? Do you want them to run out of spells?

The goal is to remove everyone from the room. Maybe have a time limit:

The god of time and trickiness wants to give the PCs a second chance because he finds them interesting.

He allows them to go back in time to try to save themselves. They have 30 seconds to find out what happened (triggered the alarm)

So the combat can only go 5 rounds. Or more if you want. In those finite number of rounds, they must ‘undo’ all the damage and death they caused to the guards. Once all the guards are alive and standing and out of the room, they win. If you have time, you may redo the fight in forward motion to see if they can be victorious.

On each round have a prescribed event happen:

Round 1 (or last round): final killing blow
Round 2: chandelier is falls and kills a guard and a pc and (un) traps someone
Round 3: two guards (un) throw alchemist fire and retreat from the room

Etc…
Last round: alarm goes off

Failure to ‘heal’ the guards and have them back out of the room within the prescribed time limit means they never learn what happened and they die permanently

 

[aco175]

I might give the next encounter advantage on the initiatives since they already know something is coming. I might base this on how much the players try to get into the spirit of the encounter though.

The first round might need to be forced a bit. You want all the Pcs to wake up rom being dead so they are not sitting there hoping a bad guy can hit the body in front of them. Traditionally Pcs die, get saved by the cleric, die again, another PC tries to go to them, they die, another couple rounds later the rest die. Give the players something they can do on the first round.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I might give the next encounter advantage on the initiatives since they already know something is coming. I might base this on how much the players try to get into the spirit of the encounter though.

The first round might need to be forced a bit. You want all the Pcs to wake up rom being dead so they are not sitting there hoping a bad guy can hit the body in front of them. Traditionally Pcs die, get saved by the cleric, die again, another PC tries to go to them, they die, another couple rounds later the rest die. Give the players something they can do on the first round.

It would be hilarious if the cleric healed a party member and they dropped

 

[TiQuinn]

Yeah, it seems this encounter can't be lost. It would inevitably move backward until all of the guards disengage. I suppose that is by design, so the encounter doesn't go on indefinitely. I mean, the Players could do weird things like stop attacking, let their opponents push them to full hit points, then try to escape. (What does this mean? They stood there and let their opponents cut them to ribbons before going down?)

But yeah, I don't think they can lose.

I thought the objective of the reverse encounter was meant to give the players an advantage when it starts to play forward again?

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I thought the objective of the reverse encounter was meant to give the players an advantage when it starts to play forward again?

Yeah, your right. In this particular encounter the Players are likely trying to avoid detection. So, when time starts flowing forward again they are left with the knowledge of how they tripped the alarm--a pressure plate under the Stone of Dignity one of the Players' Characters have pocketed.

Which Players' Character should that be? Maybe it's the one under the chandelier (if none of the Players does anything coolers with it by the time all of the guards disengage from the chamber.) whoever it is will find the Stone of Dignity in his belt pouch as he steps up to an empty pedestal and places the Stone upon the hidden pressure plate with a 'click'.

Now time starts flowing forward again and we will likely avoid setting off the alarm and the response of the guards. This is their win condition. (?)

How could 'fall' to do this? How could they be left without the knowledge of how they set off the alarm?

 

[Stormonu]

You could try to rejigger this as a puzzle. Design the combat first, rolls, damage and spells and write down the round-by-round events. Cut the events into sections and give that to the players, like a jigsaw puzzle that they have to piece together to figure out what happened, putting events in the correct order. The party has a set time to figure out what happened (say, 5 minutes). If the party solves the puzzle, they rewind to see what set off the alarm. If they fail, they start the next section captured and must escape and find their gear before continuing.

You could design it as a matrix puzzle (an incomplete example below):

"In the 5th round, the chandelier fell and did 12 damage to guard #3, killing him and finishing off the guards"
"Guard #2 died in the second round"
"The first Guard threw Alchemist fire in the third round, dealing 9 damage to Player 2"
"In the first round, there was only one guard in the room"