When your weapons won't beat the enemy?

[darjr]

Doesn't that punish the party for getting rogue if you add more traps when they get a rogue?

Uh... no.

The guy picked a rogue to do rogue things. Either they then seek these rogue encounters out so you have to give them more or you be the good DM and help facilitate their shtick.

I think that encounters like what this thread is about are essential. Like anything, they can be overdone.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am a huge fan of set piece battles. It's one of the reasons a minis/grid-centric combat doesn't entirely do it for me. Here's my take:

How do you use giant setpieces/improvisational environment deathtraps, in an RPG?

Treat the encounter something like a Rube Goldberg device, where each component is some mini-challenge (a skill check, an attack roll, whatever). The Obsidian skill challenge rules should work pretty well for 4e games, with each attempt being part of the machine. If you know where it needs to end, you can introduce a large number of prerequisite steps before you reach that point.

How do you let the players know "You simply cannot use your equipment/abilities alone to best this threat" before they TPK? Or "You need the Macguffin to beat this thing"?

How do you telegraph to the players that things in the environment or the macguffin can be used to best the enemy, without straight out saying, "Use This Thing"?

What's wrong with saying "Use This Thing?" I mean, even without metagaming: "You realize that no mortal could possibly pierce this hide. You'll need something bigger (Skill check to determine if I can give them a hint)." Or "NPC #3 says 'The legend says that only the MacGuffin can cut off the head of the monster!' "

And what rules do you use, when you do it?

Mostly just concept, not rules.

Envision the encounter itself like a dungeon.

The players want to get from Point A to Point B, and as they move toward point B, obstacles present themselves. Individual obstacles in this kind of battle are generally skill checks, or even entire skill challenges. Attack bonus and power selection matters less than a good Athletics or Acrobatics bonus. In 4e, pay for failures in healing surges to represent a sort of "long-term endurance." Also make certain successes cost surges: "You win, but at a cost."

Sometimes, they need to make a choice of direction. They'll come to a room with three exits in a dungeon; they'll come to a point where they might have three different possible ideas in fighting this beast. Maybe two of them are wrong and will lead simply to harder challenges and more lost surges. Maybe all three are wrong because they took a wrong turn back three decisions ago. Maybe all three are right, just one will be easier than the others (or lead to a bigger reward if successful).

Thinking about the encounter as a whole like this allows you to make it the focal point of the game. You might want to make some of the challenges combats instead of skill challenges, especially in 4e, so that people can feel like they're contributing something unique to the goal, but combats shouldn't be too hard to work in: a fight vs. the cultists loyal to the monster, or a fight vs. a piece of the monster itself (a single tentacle as a solo monster, or something that monster spawns, or even an encounter against the beast that ends with it or the PC's fleeing).

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

How do you let the players know "You simply cannot use your equipment/abilities alone to best this threat" before they TPK? Or "You need the Macguffin to beat this thing"?

How do you telegraph to the players that things in the environment or the macguffin can be used to best the enemy, without straight out saying, "Use This Thing"?

You're talking about a whole bunch of different (though related) things, so I'm going to focus on this one. What I like to do is to avoid "you can't kill this unless you use the X" and instead to do "it will be easier to kill this if you use the X." You need to plant information, and make things available, but "let's go on a quest to get the widget that will let us beat XYZ" can be very satisfying. However, the problem with you must use X to beat Y is, as has been noted, that it can set things up for frustration/railroadiness. So by making it a bonus, you encourage the PCs to do it, without adding a "my way or lameness" problem.

There is also the option of allowing some victories to be inconclusive unless they're done the right way-- if you kill the vampire with anything but a stake to the heart, it reforms later. You've still sorta won-- but there's an incentive to finish the job.

 

[Herobizkit]

I'm not sure if this will help, but I've found in video games, large bosses can be represented by several "parts" - head, limbs, orbs, healbots, whatever. They tried something similar in 2ed with the Hydra where each [x] HP of damage to the body disabled one head, and again with the Beholder (each eyestalk had [x] HP to sever).

You could try a similar bent with big bads in your game. Have each "target" a perecentage of the total HP. Killing the dragon's body will kill it, certainly, but if you just go after the head, you can disable its breath weapon. Or, if you hew the legs out from under it, it can't walk... chop up the wings and it can't fly.

It would be tricky to do this with EVERY enemy without it un-D&D-ifying the generic combat mechanic.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How do you let the players know "You simply cannot use your equipment/abilities alone to best this threat" before they TPK? Or "You need the Macguffin to beat this thing"?

How do you telegraph to the players that things in the environment or the macguffin can be used to best the enemy, without straight out saying, "Use This Thing"?

I'm not going to say its easy, but unless you want to absolutely state it as a fact, you use narrative devices.

For instance, I had one campaign in which the party had to defeat a guardian construct in a ritualized combat to pass a particular portal. I described the guardian in great detail, right down to its pulsing red McGuffin-shaped cavity in its chest. Other warriors were trying their various tactics against it as they arrived. Spells, weapons, etc. all failed to defeat the guardian. I made sure that I repeatedly mentioned the evil red pulsing cavity.

When the party's 1st warrior stepped into the arena, he fought bravely and valiantly, but lost. The second did likewise. The party Rogue, however, besides being one of the smarter PCs was also played by one of the smarter players. She grabbed the McGuffin and- after nearly getting killed by the guardian- managed to shove it home, deactivating the guardian and granting the party access to the spaces beyond.

In a sense, its a narrative version of the way some videogames give you a visual cue- say...a flash of light or a highlighted body part- as to the location of the foe's weak spot.