The awesome encounter that wasn't.

[Wiseblood]

Also, are you assuming that you didn't notice any PC foolishness, so none occurred, or do you have the DM's word that none occurred?

Led by a DMPC our decisions were non-existent at this point. :\

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Actually, had the opposite of an almost awesome encounter happen in my current campaign - the friendly encounter that wasn't. The PCs started in a town that was quite xenophobic and also bigoted against non-humans. Not long after entering the town, the party elf got pegged by a rotten tomato and the whole gang got tossed into jail when a crowd around them got rowdy. (the town guard was fair & let the PCs out the next morning) - the PCs then went to find accommodations at a local inn/tavern and were accosted by some locals where I really played up their "out of town" status, including the ole "yer not from around here, are ya?" . So, needless to say, that they didn't exactly feel welcome in town...

I had a planned encounter later on when those locals went to get an evil cleric of a deity that believes in racial purity and used him to help try to knock some sense into the PCs and send them out of town... but, afterwards, I had planned what I thought was a nice friendly encounter - some locals who were more friendly to the PCs were going to applaud them for taking down the locals and the evil cleric, and then hook them into a major plot point.

Well, the evil priest stepped out in front of the PCs and said he had bribed the guards to stay out of that section of town for the night and then the locals tried to jump the players - after a tough combat, the PCs won and killed the evil cleric. However, they were so paranoid about being found amidst a bunch of dead locals, that they immediately high-tailed it out of town - not even stopping to bury the bodies or search them that thoroughly. I had thought I had said the guards were avoiding that part of town, but they still didn't want to take the chance.

I had planned to have some locals arrive when they were wrapping up the battle, and the locals would thank them for taking out the evil priest and then introduce them to a local group opposed to the neighboring nation of slavers through an NPC they had met earlier. However, that encounter didn't take place because they hightailed it outta Dodge so quickly, so they still have that sour taste in their mouths about the town - and, it's been several sessions later and I still haven't been able to work that plot point into the story yet.

I'm amazed that they stayed in town as long as they did. I'd have been urging the party to get outa Dodge as soon as soon as possible. And I'd have been 'I told you so'ing on the way out after killing someone who could bribe the Town Guard! But we definitely would have stripped them clean first! You should have had the friendly townsfolk pop out as the fight was finishing instead of waiting to see what the PCs would do.

 

[werk]

Yes. Definitely. You knew your players were expecting style X, a style you didn't like. You could've told them you run style Y and corrected their misconceptions before it caused bad feeling. You chose not to do that.

Yeah, if only the DMG had something to say about that...like around page 48, tailored or status quo. I play status quo adventures, and am very clear to make sure the players understand that at the start, it greatly influences their approach to conflict resolution.

This example actually was tailored, just the PCs were too dense to figure anything out. I don't think they could have found their way out of a wet paper bag, sounds like.

 

[Wik]

Mine's a fun one.

We were running Savage Tide, around 8th level or so. (Don't worry, no spoilers). I've read and re-read the adventure, and I'm quite prepared for it. The PCs are travelling through the jungles, and I roll a random encounter (much of this part of the adventure involves the PCs travelling, and using the random encounters/getting lost rules).

I roll up a Hezrou. "Neat" say I, "A Demon I've never used before!"

So, I quickly read up the stat entry. I'm pretty sure the group can take it, since they can deal a surprising amount of damage. It'll be tough, CR 11 vs. 5 8th level PCs, but it can be done.

Hezrou wins the initiative. Looking at it's tactics entry, I see that it opens up with Blasphemy, so.... let's do that.

I look up the spell description (don't usually play high level D&D, so it was new to me). Since the PCs are 5 levels lower than the monster (it says "up to 5 levels lower than caster level", but I included five as part of that) they are all paralyzed, weakened (-2d6 STR for a while - so much for our fighters!) and Dazed. No save is allowed.

The Hezrou then proceeds to, well, kill everyone.

Everyone in the group is stunned, me most of all. I look at everyone and say "That was a random encounter. It was totally my fault. Let's roll again on the tables, and just say this was a really bad dream on your guys' part. And if you see one of these demons again, run."

I think they wound up fighting a gargantuan spider or something like that, and it turned out to be pretty fun.

 

[S'mon]

"That was a random encounter. It was totally my fault."

I'd say it was the fault of the designer who gave a CR 11 monster a ridiculously overpowered ability. I had a similar experience with the 3.5 MM when an *illusion* of a pit fiend nearly wiped out a ca 11th level party. The 3.5 demon & devil stats are just horrible.

Edit: I think the best GMs can edit monster stats on the fly to prevent travesties like this; but I killed a lot of PCs in 3e before I realised this was necessary; it was never a problem for me in 1e.

 

[GammaPaladin]

This is actually my favorite moment ever, but I know the GM meant it to be significantly harder than it was.

We were playing the GM's homebrew system in a play-by-post campaign. The party was all low level, just 1st/2nd basically (Although it's hard to translate the systems). A few of us spellcasters were separated from the rest of the party, and the GM sics a rather largish group of opponents on us. Something like 10-15.

Now, we're spellcasters, but we're babies. We have level 0 and level 1 spells basically, and one guy has Web. It's not quite DnD, in that we can melee, and we'll probably win, but we're going to be battered and limping home, if none of us die.

The highest level player happens to win initiative and tosses web, to buy time. He lucks out and gets every enemy but one. That guy is still charging us. I go next, I have nothing for damage, really, but I have heat metal. I'm thinking fast to try and actually slow this guy down, I don't want to just make him drop his sword, he's got other weapons on him. So I ask the GM what kind of armor he's wearing. Chainmail. So I cast heat metal on his armor, thinking it'll take him a few rounds to get out of, and he'll have to take some actual damage from it instead of just dropping the weapon before being hurt.

The guy in the armor fails the check the GM rolls to figure out what's going on, and, thinking he's on fire, pours water over himself, creating scalding steam and taking extra damage, and delaying beginning the multi-round action of taking off his chainmail.

Meanwhile, one of the other level 1 players tosses his one useful spell at this guy: Entangle.

He now can't take any action at all, and is slowly roasting to death, one point of damage at a time.

Another friend, inspired, tosses an unlit lamp full of oil into the midst of the people entangled in the web, breaking it.

I cast spark.

The GM outright told us he'd never seen an encounter foiled quite so thoroughly and creatively. We were quite proud of ourselves.

Next encounter he sent an elemental after us

 

[Three_Haligonians]

So here's what happened to me:

I run an Epic Game - the PCs were on a quest to enter the Great Desert and find the 1st temple to the Sun God that was ever made (now long lost and buried in the sand).

To get there, they all had to pass through a very dangerous portion of the desert, filled with salt rivers, unstable canyons, deadly dunes... and every other supernatural hazard from Sandstorm.

They decide instead, to save resources and take the valley pass that goes through it. However, this pass is controlled - at the beginning is a desert camp that is run by an evil sphinx of no small power (advanced, with lots of Druid levels to make her an Epic challenge).

So begins the parley - the Sphinx wants to charge them outrageous prices for passing though "her territory" and insists they buy food and water from her for the trip (as a druid, she didn't want them hunting or foraging in the area.. it would be disruptive).. of course, the price for supplies was equally high.

They refuse, and after a bit of negotiation the Sphinx proposes "answer my three riddles and you can have passage and supplies free of charge". (It's a sphinx, in the desert.. you all saw that coming..). The party agrees, though they don't like it, and answer the first two riddles without too much trouble.

Then the Sphinx pulls out her ace in the hole - she asks the third riddle in Druidic.

None of the characters are Druids but one has the Epic feat polyglot and another has a permanent tongues spell so they both understand her just fine. Just to throw her trick back in her face, they answer in Druidic as well.

The Sphinx asks, "oh... I didn't realize you were also children of nature.." and they reply "ha! we're not! shows what you know.."

The sphinx replies "you know our secret language? for that you must die!" and attacks (this was all what I figured would happen.. and I am well prepared for the upcoming battle)

The sorceress wins initiative over the Sphinx and casts Otto's Irresistible Dance

2 rounds later the Sphinx was dead... never got a chance to do a thing - the party just surrounded her and killed her with all the AoOs.

I still have the untouched sheet filled with her stats and spells...



J from Three Haligonians

 

[moritheil]

Led by a DMPC our decisions were non-existent at this point. :\

Ah, that's important. That's a problem.

 

[Silver Moon]

Awesome encounter that wasn't.....hmmm.....lots of possible nominees......the living chess game where it turns out most of the players didn't know how to play chess.....the 'Wandering Trees' module where the characters used magic to fly over the wandering trees, thus skipping 80% of the module.....but I'd say the winner has to be the following:

The characters are put in charge of one of two major armies, their army set to attack a nearby city where the other army is at. They decide the best approach is to sneak into the city and incapitate the enemy army leaders while their own army moves up during the night. Good plan so far....it's how they go about incapacitating the enemy that isn't exactly the material for the ballads of courage.

They find inn the enemy leaders are at, have a few of the characters take over as the bartender and waitresses, and continually keep the beverages flowing. Meanwhile their fighters set up positions behind the outhouses and knock out the drunk opponents individually while they are relieving themselves. Ah, it could have been a glorious battle! Instead they resort to rolling drunks!

 

[DestroyYouAlot]

The OP's example is an example of masterful GMing, not the converse. Take an enemy that's balanced in terms of HD (or CR for recent editions), and play them as hard and smart as possible. If they're drow, this is the only way to run them properly - that's where genius-level intelligence comes in handy. For that matter, this is the only way kobolds should be run, ever. If you meet a mob of kobolds running around in the open where you can smoosh them, something's wrong behind the screen - they just don't do that. They hole up and cheat.