Trap Door Spiders Don't Work

[Amaroq]

Cool. I'd suggest you nail those down before-hand, maybe something like:

Either Side
- Hide covering has 12 hit points, AC 10, vulnerable 5 fire, resist 5 cold, and immune poison, necrotic.

- Hide covering starts with Perfect Concealment (cannot be spotted or targeted). Each time it is opened, dug near, etc, its concealment level is reduced by one as snow falls of it.

Character Inside:
- while grabbed, kicking the door is a Minor Action; gives those outside an Aid Another +2 to their Perception check to find it, and also reduces the Concealment level by one.

- standing from prone as a Move Action opens the door automatically.

Character Outside
- Active Perception as a Minor Action, Moderate DC, to spot the door.
(Adjusted per its current Concealment level.)

- Minor Action to open the door with one arm, but it drops closed if you let go without propping it up/open first.

- Move Action to dig snow out of the way, reducing the Concealment level by one.


Concealment Level

3 = Perfect Concealment, cannot be spotted or targeted
2 = Total Concealment, -5 to spot or attack
1 = Concealment, -2 to spot or attack
0 = Revealed

Basically, the more actions the PC's put into finding the sucker, the easier it gets, until its clear exactly where it is.

Alternately, you could couch "Find the Hide Covering" as an in-combat Skill Challenge, X successes, no failure limit (time is the limiting factor).

 

[Rechan]

How do you envision the combat playing out?

I expect them to die!

To be more specific...

In my world, Bugbears behave like the Yautja from the movie "Predator", but instead of aliens they are humans who started hunting people for sport, and just slowly turned into something Else. They only enjoy hunting people, and like a good challenge. They typically are rare, and only come out every decade or so.

In this situation, two bugbears have engineered a situation. They've set several traps, and captured a human and his sled dogs. The human is hung from a tree and cut his ankle, the dogs slaughtered and their blood spread across the snow. The blood attracts snow sharks (a manta-ray type beast that "swims" through the snow). The branch the man is dangling from has been cracked, so that it's slowly starting to break under his flailings, as the snow sharks try to bite at him. His yelling for help is what should attract the PCs.

One bugbear is seated in a tree adjacent to a natural choke point. As soon as the melee guys are across the choke point (read: the first round of combat), the first bugbear pulls a rope, dropping a rigged tree across the chokepoint, blocking passage (and the branches from the fallen tree obscure much of the fight with the snow sharks). The first bugbear then lassos one of the back ranks guys by the throat and drags him up into the tree.

A few minion traps are sprinkled around (primarily about the base of the first bugbear's tree, to protect it from people running to grab the strangling PC).

The second (trap door) bugbear then attacks. I've not determined where his spider hole is going to go, just yet, but I might move it to be close to where a back ranks caster takes up residence. A good likely location is where a caster would have a view of the battlefield.

For the Bugbears, their plan is to promptly kill the back ranks guys (or any healers - convenient that one of the back ranks guys is a healer), and either wade in to flank the PC wounded by the snow sharks, flee back to a better position and double back on their enemy, or hide. They are used to hunting "normal" woodsmen and travelers and the like, so PCs are more powerful than what they would expect.

The ambush is set on a well trafficed trail (a ravine pass that travels between the mountains), so this is a good place to stalk, and someone running across their trap is very likely.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I think Inifinit2000 has the right of it, but would add that possibly instead of having a hinged door on the pit that the bugbear would need to manipulate/move/etc.... have the hide cover attached to his back. That way he can lunge upward in one swift movement {move}, grab/pull, and drop back down into hiding {standard encounter power}... and still have a {minor} action left to work with.

 

[Rechan]

RW, I appreciate the thought that went into your reply. That situation is great. Just that I all ready had the scenario in mind, and I had the idea for the trapdoor bugbear well after I had set up everything else. Had bugbears been different in this setting, and I had the trapdoor idea first, your suggestion would be awesome.

 

[RangerWickett]

My pleasure. Heck, I should be thanking you, for inspiring me to come up with an encounter I now want to use. And maybe somebody else reading the thread will get something out of it.

Actually, I like your set up better. Mine's just a fight with some tricks. Yours has drama. (Plus yautja bugbears!)

 

[Amaroq]

Count me inspired, both of you!

 

[DracoSuave]

My two cents:


It sounds to me that to build a Trap Door Spider-style ambush, you've overlooked the obvious answer:


A trap.


Have a trap that has 'An enemy of the individual inside it walks over it' as it's trigger, and has an power that allows the individual inside it to draw the target into the trap, and gives them a free standard action.

Done, and done.

 

[Rechan]

Hmm.

For the Trapdoor Bugbear, I'm fine with a typical Bugbear Strangler made elite (possibly given a minor action attack).

But for the one in the tree, I don't see him getting combat advantage often, hence not letting him get to strangle. And finding another lurker that isn't magical is challenging. I definitely want to give the impression of "Swift Death" or "Hunter of men", that doesn't use magic tricks.

I might just bite the bullet and amke the Bugbear Shadow Walker an elite, and describe the invisibility as kicking up enough snow to 'hide'.

 

[BruntFCA]

Can't you just make it up?

I mean if he's written as a "trap", just make it so he can do it!

Anyway, RAW you can only take *one* action in a suprise round. So if you are hoping to "spring" the "trap", he can only take 1 action anyway. Seriously are your players going to notice/care about some mechanics you've done behind this?

If they fail perception, you just say..."A pair of hands drags you into the floor"....yada yada.

 

[On Puget Sound]

He's a bugbear monk.

Trap-Door Spider Style Full Discipline, Encounter

Standard: Make a grab attack. If your attack is successful the target is silenced until it escapes the grab. If you were hidden at the start of the turn you may make a stealth check to remain hidden from everyone except your target.

Move: Move your speed. You may make part of this move before a standard action and the rest of the move after that action. If you were hidden at the start of the turn you may make a stealth check to remain hidden during this move.