Share Your Terrain Ideas!

[Scribble]

So I'm having lots of fun with the way terrain can/will interact with the powers and such in 4e, and I was wondering what other peoples experiences were... Anything you've done that's been particularily fun? Or that's been a downer in actual play?

I set up an encounter on a riverbank, in the rain. The edges of the river were muddy, creating difficult terrain, but also added +1 square to any forced movement effect. I then stuck a couple of mercenaries (with a push effect tied to their swords) on the edge protecting a mage standing on a barge docked on the side of the river... The party fighter ran to deal with the mage, and one of the mercs managed to slide him right into the fast moving river. Watching a dwarf swim is funny...)

In hindsight I should have put a merc on the barge with the mage, as once the Dwarf recovered, he was on the barge pretty quickly. A merc could have helped by sending him back into the drink a few more times...

Next came a battle on the river itself. The pcs were on a barge (from the above encounter) heading down river, when attacked by a number of hobgoblins in canoes... One of them was a Warcaster with a slide effect. He did manage to slide the eladrin off the barge... The player forgot about his feystep, so swam/tried climbing back onboard a few times before remembering... duh...

In hindsight, I wish I had set up a few more people with slide effects. I also set up the canoes as having artillery in the front, with soldiers paddling... I intended for the artillery to work their mojo and then the soldiers would paddle up and board... I should have had a canoe or two filled just with soldiers who would board right away.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've started a Terrain page on the Arcana Wiki, which should be a starting point.

 

[Dykstrav]

My current party is venturing to a wizard's tower located deep within a swamp. I've made deep mud at the bottom of some pools of standing water that immobilizes you if you end your movement in it (+5 vs. Fortitude, immobilized until the end of your next turn). Of course, the native lizardfolk and other nasties are aware that there's usually thcik mud at the bottom of these pools and exploit them... Unfortunately, I've tried to clue in the ranger that he can spot them with Nature checks, but he rarely seems interested in checking them.

I've got an encounter set up for the upcoming weekend's game where the party can either descend into a gatehouse (where there's an underground, but dry, conenction to the lower levels of the tower) or cross a lake on a skiff to get to the wizard's tower. If they take the skiff, they'll discover that there are harpies nesting in the surrounding rocks and trees that will try to pull them off the skiff and into the water. The characters have encountered gators in the swamp, but this lake actually has pirahna swarms... I'm basically using the stats for a needlefang drake swarm to represent a pirahna swarm, except that it's aquatic and has a swim speed instead of a land speed. Since knocking people prone doesn't make as much sense underwater, I'm just going to give it a "feeding frenzy" power that lets it do the 2d10+4 damage as a power that recharges on a 5.

I'm looking forward to seeing what my players do when they are assailed by pirahnas.