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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5293560" data-attributes="member: 87792">I've customised the encounters a lot, but three sets come to mind. First, the Fire Forest.  I've completely changed the Indomitable Zombies.  What I do is take stock monsters and give them 66% hp and insubstantial (to reflect their undying nature).  If hit with a cold attack or pushed into water, the insubstantial is suppressed for one round as the flames are beaten back - fire can reignite monsters.  (Oh, and they have a flaming aura, but I digress).  This normally leads to a tug of war element to fights with the PCs trying to push the monsters into the nearest river, pond, or well - and the monsters trying to push the PCs into flaming trees.  Keeps things interesting <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I also really changed Flaganus Mortus; I don't like solo humans out of nowhere and other than the kid, the encounter struck me as a grindfest.  So what I did was downgraded Flaganus to a L4 Elite (Half Orc Beserker + Shock Trooper IIRC) and sent someone (L4 artillery - I forget which one) down on a dragon wyrmling (L4 elite from the Dragonomicon) to rescue him from the city.  I played the rescuer as a young, idealistic sort who was horrified when Flaganus cut the kid's throat to keep the PCs off him and on his next attack roll dropped a burst 1 on PCs and Flaganus alike.  Then the dice gods took a hand. After cutting the kid's throat, the PCs threw everything they had at Flaganus - and the kid was at the other end of the initiative order.  Flaganus was by this point bloodied.  Kid dropped his encounter attack and rolled.  Natural 20 on his attack against Flaganus - and missed two out of three PCs, with the attack doing minimum damage.  Checked damage.  Checked Flaganus' remaining hit points.  Clean kill to the outraged Ragesian lieutenant.  Arrow over the shoulder of PC (causing him to flinch and lose hp) and straight into Flaganus' eye.  When the dice gods hand you something like that, you take it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> - and the party diplomancer (a former Ragesian officer/ Cha 18 Warlord) grabbed it with both hands by not only talking the kid down, but talking him into defecting through RP + a tough skill challenge.  And then I set them the challenge of carting the dragon + defector to a cellar for safety (everyone's including theirs) before they made contact with senior members of the Resistance.  (Cue improvised plan + skill challenge involving looted cart, horse blankets, hay, and pretending to be a plague cart to keep everyone away). Finally the boneshards.  Looked like a poor encounter that didn't advance the plot and was far too lethal.  So I replaced it with a Ragesian inquisitor behind White Wyrms who was busy indoctrinating recruits and torturing their Resistance contact (who they'd been too busy dealing with the wyrmling to meet that night).  The torture chamber itself had cages, an iron maiden, and assorted other junk - and the local thugs enjoying helping the Inquisitor/being indoctrinated managed to push the Paladin into the Iron Maiden for most of the fight.  They also pushed the Eladrin swordmage plus his opponent into one of the cages - he just looked contemptuously at the bars and Fey Stepped out, leaving one NPC bad guy trapped for most of the rest of the fight.  (That fight was good - but would have been incredible if I'd remembered my plan to convey the raucous atmosphere and cheering as they pushed the PCs into some of these traps). Still, my big change to the Fire Forest is that the PCs are trying to escape - white water rafting over the waterfall (Indomitability would catch them if they went overland).  I'll have to write up how that encounter goes.</blockquote>

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