Tactical Encounter Problems

[Nilbog]

Hi

I guess this is a problem generic to most systems, but as I'm playing 4e I thought I'd post here.

I've just started DM'ing my first campaign and I'm using Wizards Dungeon tiles to create encounters for the groups, however I'm having a few problems. I'm trying my best to create interesting terrains that form part of the encounter, however the group never get to experience them.

What generally happens is they hold a choke point, an example being in last nights game the combat took place in a cavern, however instead of moving into the cavern, they waited at the entrance, a 2 square wide cave, blocked it with a defender and a melee cleric and let those with ranged powers pick off the other monsters at a distance, and make the monsters come to them. Not a bad tactic and an effective one, however how can i discourage it? its happened a couple of times now, and I feel that it really takes away from a strong point of 4e?

even if the group in general wins intitiative, they delay waiting for the monsters to go, so it either becomes a mexican standoff or a ranged battle, neither of which are great fun. Any suggestions?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Just as well that you didn't post this in general, as it probably would have attracted a bunch of anti-4e hate and not answered your question.

I have a couple suggestions to alleviate your issues:

• Don't start the encounter until they're *past* the chokepoints. Have some enemies move or start in a position able to block their escape or retreat. Ambushes are good.
• Use monsters that can slide, or pull, your PCs around. If you can disrupt their tactical positioning, that will get them moving and thinking.
• Use monsters with area bursts and close blast attacks. If they're clumping up in doorways, this should encourage them to move around and spread out.
• If the "room" is big enough, you can have the monsters lurk outside of the PC ranged attackers' range, preferably with long-ranged attacks of their own.
• Put something in the room that forces them into it - a trap to be disabled (that can still threaten them where they are in the chokepoints), or something like that.
• Lurkers that can teleport or move insubstantially through their ranks to get at the back row, or other monsters that can shift through PC spaces (some of them even get to attack while doing so). One of my personal favourites for this at lower-levels is the humble Carrion Crawler, since it also moves with Spider Climb and has speed 8.

Hope these suggestions prove helpful.

 

[wedgeski]

Nemesis has it covered. I've suffered from this myself and have completely changed my approach to tactical encounters because of it.

 

[Mengu]

Interesting, I usually have the opposite problem where the defenders charge into everything.

In my experience, waiting in a choke point, clumped together is very hazardous for PC's. Enemy controllers and artillery can do devastating things to a group that's not spread out. Starting out the encounter immobilized, blinded, dazed, or stunned in a choke point, can spell doom.

Best way to force players to move is to toss around some zones and auras. They will do everything to get out of it. Another way is to have creatures with either big shifting powers or bonus against opportunity attacks, or attacks like fly by, which will force the PC's to come to them. Also having enemy artillery shoot, then move to full cover will also force the PC's forward. And worst comes to worst, you can use powers that slide/pull them.

Another bit of advice would be to vary encounter area size. PC's shouldn't always be able to find a choke point. Wilderness encounters, courtroom fights, and even some more complex indoor areas where enemies have a lot of room to run around and hide, and use hit and run tactics, should get the PC's moving.

I'm actually a little surprised that PC's are willing to weather attrition at range. This usually turns out to be a very resource intensive fight for the PC's unless they are all built for ranged attacks and have access to a lot of healing (and even then, it just shortens their adventuring day). Your typical paladin or warden is not exactly great with ranged attacks, not to mention barbarians, avengers, warpriests, runepriests, and a plethora of other melee characters.

I find that it is tactically wise to get in the enemy's grill, than allow them to deploy their best tactics freely.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Also, creatures that have "drag away" type abilities are fantastic for breaking up PC formations. See also Carrion Crawler, or some of the Wolf type enemies for this tactic right from level 1.

When you try these new tactics, there are a couple approaches you can take;

* if you don't mind killing them, don't hold back, be ruthless, and let the dice fall where they may. If you kill PCs, maybe they will learn a valuable lesson, or maybe they will just be bitter and annoyed that their tactics suddenly don't work.

* you can take it easy, and use an easier fight to introduce your tactics. This can ease them into the idea of moving around and trying other tactics. Though it might not be enough to get them out of their comfort zone.

* you can try a mix, where some fights, the old bottleneck still works, and others where it doesn't. Gradually decrease the ones where it does.

* you can metagame it. Just flat out tell them that their tactic makes for boring, one-sided combats, and that they ought to try something else. This probably won't work, as it seems that your encounter design is at least partly the cause of your situation.

 

[Nullzone]

I'm a fan of area bursts to make people spread out, because it's great action economy. People learn quickly that having the whole party eat attacks, even if they're kind of weak, is not good because the leader only has two heals.

If your monsters don't have area bursts (either because they're melee only or because they're nonintelligent), improvise; if it's a bunch of goblin cutthroats and sharpshooters, then give one or more of them an alchemical flask that does the area burst. If it's something non-intelligent, then give it a close blast or a shift-through-enemies-attacking-everyone (like the Carrion Crawler already mentioned).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Do something to attract them into the room. That is, you need some carrot along with the stick. As previously mentioned, a monster that is blasting them from long range with serious damage is a stick that says, "move". Making such monsters with abilities or environment that makes them hard to hit at range, but easy to slaughter in melee is a big carrot.

If you want to really drive this point home, put such monsters way back in a chamber, and then block the chokepoint with brutes and a soldier--two rounds after the fight starts. Using chokepoints is strategic, and you would like for your players to be smart. But it is not smart to say, "chokepoint, stay there and block it," every time without studying the situation. Rather, you want to see if blocking the monsters off of your squishies is more important than the monsters blocking the party off of their squishies.

The only way to drive that home against habitual "turtles" is to make both situations extreme for awhile so that they get used to making a conscious decision instead of turtling by default. Since they already turtle by default, you'll need to be particularly extreme with the situations where they should want to move in but the monsters try to block them. Mix that in with some fights with no bottlenecks to keep from going insane during the habit-breaking phase.

BTW, the analysis is the same for the party that always blindly rushes in. Only difference is that with such a group you want to focus on the other extreme. But it is the same problem--strategy by habit instead of thought.

 

[filthgrinder]

All good advice so far. I'll add in some of my thoughts. If you find the PC's clustering at doors use some ranged area attacks. Some archers that do a "hail of arrows" that is an area burst 1 within 10 or something can really dishearten them. I just use the gnolls from the Monster Vault on my PCs, and their encounter power that does that was good.

In HS1: The Slaying Stone, there is an Orc wolf shaman who has a great power:

Vengeful Wolf Spirit (Conjuration) Encounter
Effect: The orc conjures a wolf spirit. It appears in an unoccupied square within 5 squares of the orc, moves 6 squares, then disappears. The wolf makes a melee attack (+9 vs. AC) against each creature whose space it enters. A creature hit by the attack takes 1d8 + 4 damage and falls prone.

Pop that out, and run it through the bunched up players.

There is also an old favorite: Reinforcements!
If the party is bunched at a choke point, defenders in front, have them rushed from behind by some nasty skirmishers.

Whenever my players are clustered together, they refer to it as "fireball formation".

Also, as Nemesis said, put something in the room that they need to get to in order to finish the encounter. Maybe some crafty kobolds constructed a flame trap at the mouth of the cave. In the back there is a switch which turns it on and off. The players group up in the choke point, the kobolds pull the lever and as Mortal Kombat has taught us: TOASTY! Have automatic ballistas or other mechanic batteries trained on the PCs.

I find PCs "get the hint" quickly once "significant" damage is dealt out, but you should also reward the players for breaking formation and rushing into the room. If a rogue jumps past the shield wall fighter and disables the trap in the middle of the room surrounded by orcs, maybe give him a bonus to disable the trap, and have some of the orcs miss him. The worst thing you want is to get the party moving about and then smack them down for it.

 

[Riastlin]

Another idea is to have some of your monsters go out the back door of the room and circle around to attack the PCs from the hallway, perhaps calling for reinforcements along the way. Players hate nothing more than having their strategies turned against them. Alternatively, some areas could justify having some sort of an alarm system (like a giant gong) that can be triggered when the monsters notice the PCs. Do that and the players definitely have incentive to end the fight quickly. Obviously you can't do this every time, but with enough different options for encouraging the players to come into the area, you should get more interesting combats.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Another idea is to have some of your monsters go out the back door of the room and circle around to attack the PCs from the hallway, perhaps calling for reinforcements along the way. Players hate nothing more than having their strategies turned against them. Alternatively, some areas could justify having some sort of an alarm system (like a giant gong) that can be triggered when the monsters notice the PCs. Do that and the players definitely have incentive to end the fight quickly. Obviously you can't do this every time, but with enough different options for encouraging the players to come into the area, you should get more interesting combats.

For a really obvious but cruel variation on that, have a couple of linear encounters, with no back door or other way around. Have the first encounter be mainly frontline types. Have the second encounter be mainly artillery, with maybe a few skirmishers and/or one lurker just to be fair.

There are two bottlenecks, the entrance to the first encounter area and the connection between the first and second encounter areas. The second bottleneck is less severe (narrow, but not really narrow.) If the party turtles on the first one (not a bad tactic in as far as they know at that point), the monsters hang back for a couple of rounds, look uncertain, then run and get the monsters in the second group. They then proceed to make a line across the second bottleneck. The artillery moves up behind them and starts peppering the PCs in the first bottleneck.

If you really want to be mean, set it up with a raised area and a short wall, such that the second bottleneck offers cover, but the first does not.

I wouldn't do this to just anyone, but sometimes extreme turtles need something that focuses their attention on the problem.