Comments on: Five Ways to Spice up your Encounters

By: Mark the Spielknight

Mark the Spielknight — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:24:25 +0000

I really like your ideas. In my game it seems like fighting encounters just drag on and on. I would really like to add some more of these different types of ideas.

Keep up the great site!

By: 1001 Bobs » The Third Week of April in the Year 2009 - Blogroll

1001 Bobs » The Third Week of April in the Year 2009 - Blogroll — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 07:47:11 +0000

[...] 1. Five Ways to Spice up your Encounters ~ link [...]

By: Encounter-a-Day » Archive » Dynamic Domains: Caves

Encounter-a-Day » Archive » Dynamic Domains: Caves — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:04:10 +0000

[...] is that they can be very small and cramped. However, by adding in lots of difficult terrain you virtually expand the size of the area, since you’re reducing how quickly all of the combatants can [...]

By: Remi

Remi — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:59:17 +0000

Sorry, just a demonstration of ways of stacking some of these ideas together to create a memorable combat.

By: Remi

Remi — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:58:21 +0000

My best 4e combat was on a moving carriage racing through town, being pursued by Ork wolfriders. The rules were thus:
1. At its top speed, it would take 10 (6? I can’t remember) rounds to get to their destination.
2. One PC had to be driving the carriage at the start of a round. To drive the carriage, a PC had to use all their move or standard actions.
3. They had to keep the Macguffin alive.

The combat evolved quickly, with PCs desperately trying to hold it together on top of and inside the cramped 2×3 square carriage. People were hanging off the sides, getting pushed off the carriage, stabbing through the top to get at enemies inside, and sacrificing precious healing actions to keep the macguffin alive.

When it was over, I could tell they felt like they had just barely squeaked by.

By: Freezer

Freezer — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:14:52 +0000

How would the rocks provide cover from other rocks of similar size/mass being thrown at PCs?

I’m with you on the difficult/impassable terrain, We’ve just finished the pyramid of shadows and its almost nothing but one semi-featureless room after another. Not only is it boring but a wizard’s assortment “do damage and a burst and area is difficult until end of your next turn” spells are worthless when it only costs one square to go around it.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:25:00 +0000

Great article gamefiend. May I add one?

6. Make the battlefield vertical. One of the coolest encounters I’ve run in the past was one where the entire battle was fought on a vertical battlefield. Think “sidescroller” video game. The PCs were climbing up a series of vertical caves, so we decided that lateral movement was less important than tracking vertical movement, and the battle map was a “sideview”… with kobold throwing down rocks into mine shafts.

By: Tommi

Tommi — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:11:48 +0000

I prefer to use rules where this sort of stuff is not an issue, but if I am ever tricked into running 4e, I’ll be certain to remember this. Good stuff.

By: kaeosdad

kaeosdad — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:01:16 +0000

Nice! I like the weakness idea. I’ve actually done the evolving battlefield once. The monsters were a charmed bulette and a group of crazed drumming fey dwarves(kords I think they were called). It was great, the forest clearing that the battle took place in got torn up big time, pits appeared left and right, piles of boulders and rubble got strewn all over the battlefield. Combined with the dwarves abilities to constantly shift made for an interesting combat.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:04:02 +0000

While reading this, I found myself saying (out loud) “Yes yes yes, YOU’RE SO RIGHT.” Seriously great advice, here.

I was going to say something about non-terrain-based changes to a fight, such as enemies calling in reinforcements, but I think you’ve already got that covered under “Make Combat About More than Killing Kobolds”. After all, an additional goal in a fight could be something like “Keep all the guards away from the alarm bell” or “Keep the necromancer away from the corpses”.