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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 4624632" data-attributes="member: 75065">The best ones: The ones I've tweaked and added my own personal touches to The Worst ones: Ready made encounters I've run as is. I'm running two groups of 4e. All new players pretty much except 3. The first group I began with I ran things pretty much as the adventures came a) becasue I was learning how to play 4e myself and b) I had no time to invest in spicing things up with a cool story etc. I ran the adventure that comes in the DMG. Surprisingly everyone enjoyed the encounter with the dragon at the end. As I looked through my nice shiney KotSF adventure set grave doubts arose as to the grindy repetitiveness of Hobgoblin Encounters. I have already added horror elements to being in the Keep itself and tied in the LFR version of it to swap out Shadow Ritualists for some of the Hobgoblins, but I feel I need to invent more options for the players to be able to choose fun exciting non-combat paths through a lot of the slog work of the keep (which is huge, especially considering how rarely we get a chance to play... we would be down there for years). With my second group I invested Story time creation into adapting the LFR Escape from Sembia and it really came to life. A death defying escap over building tops to lose themselves in the busy evening market, distracting the guards with rearing horses and hiding in the eerie ruins of old town. When they escaped through Ye Olde Gate, towards the mountains they met with the Hobgoblins in Ye Olde Ruined Keep and it turned sour. I hadn't tweaked it. I didn't realise I should have. I hadn't run a battle with Soldiers before. What a slog! The only light relieft was occasionaly throwing their Paladin into the fire. In the end when the had obviously won and yet three of them were still on there feet the Hobgoblins fled out of sheer boredom. (word of advice: be careful using too many soldiers: very hard to hit, plenty of HP, not very fun. Maybe Brutes are a better choice: Hard hitting and easier to hit... everyone is happy.) So, having learnt my lesson, and having had so much fun during the skill challenge escape (my first ever) I decided to introduce a new player into the game  via a combat encounter with a Skill Challenge running at the same time.  I must admit, I have preferred to adopt Stalker0's Obsidian system (although I adjust it to my own personal needs/preferences). Worth checking out!!! The party was approached by a talking cat with a strange triangular shaped pendant necklace which begged them to free its sister from the darkness. (The cat was the new characters pet... not a familiar... just a cool pet... under the effects of the character's sisters Animal Messenger Ritual). The new character a Drow Warlock had escaped  from the underdark after shaming her house. She was to be punished for heresy although the true reason for her impending death was the prophesy of the family witch that their house would suffer nothing but disaster as long as she was alive. Anyway I digress... I set up a three tiered shrine made up of 6 magic circles and a circle of stones and sacrificial altar where a "shadow drider" was being summoned. Each magic circle had a differnt effect: slow, immobilse, poison damage, sleep,blindness which attacked the will or fortitude of someone outside the ritual taking place. An opposing Drow house, whos interest was to keep her alive, thus ensuring their rivals continued bad luck, had organized the distraction of the leaders mid-ritual as the sister searched for help.  The party arrived to face 12 Drow minions (reskinned elven archers with an attack power that blinded) and semi invisible shadow claws (minions reskinned from somewhere else, I cant remember), young children that slowly turned upon them as the srambled up the narrow stairs. They had to disarm the magic circles, to be able to enter the Stone Circles and free the Warlock. Little did the know the children were not performing the ritual, but stopping it til the Master returned. So when the last child fell the ritual kicked back in.  The had to free the warlock from the shadow drider which now had a painful life draining aura around it that damaged anyone inside the circle of stones and yet was invunerable to attacks. And then escape from the sacrificial altar with the never-seen-but-deeply-feared "real drow" hot on their trail. A trail which led them into a desecrated cementary. (The skeleton Encounter frome Escape from Sembia). As the passed through the terrifying cementary (which attacked each of their will each round they lingered... which was quite funny the all went back to back and marched defensively at half their speed thus receiving three attacks before reaching the other side) the passed a menacing tree that emenated anger and supernatural hatred and had 5 skulls dangling from its branches... as soon as they left the other side of the cementary the skulls began to call back to them in no recognisable language (I had written out the script backwards and when i read it it sounded like latin)... then in front of them 5 headless skeletons arose from the shrubbery...nee...ehem....  The most fun part was when the first attached the skeltons and the head of the one struck called out rorre!!! (error) and then when he rolled a critical fumble (which sometimes I roll again to confirm the seriousness of the fumble... in this case a 4 was bad enough for me to rule he had blasted his fellow skeleton in the back) the unwary victim cried 'Norbac' !(in Spanish, Cabron = Bastard!) and suddenly one of them caught on. The quickly deciphered the heads message that they begging the PC's to bring them their heads and release them from their suffering...Oh how close they had been to deciding to destroy the heads!!!! So three ran to collect the heads suffering the fear attacks from the graveyards supernatural hatred and the other 3 bravely faced the fury of the mindless bodies pummeling them to near death while trying to keep the attackers at bay but not destroy them. Retreating finally into the graveyard where the bodies were unable to enter.  As they gave them their heads back the bodies entered and set their souls to rest near the dessecrated tree. The supernatural fear left. The spirit of the leaders guided them to some hidden treasure in one of the tombs and promised to watch over thei sleep i that night, and so they were rewarded with a peaceful rest as well. I think I will keep this ind of attitude towards constructing my encounters: ways that combat can be ended with little 'encounter tiny adventures'. Not all but definitely enough to avoid ever having to have the monster flee out of share boredom. Hope something in there can be useful to make your and your groups first experiences with 4e a fun one.</blockquote>

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