Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ahab_ Jul 22, 2010 15:29:41	I have a scenerio I've designed that my PCs are going to go through in a few weeks, and there's a part of it that could use a little polish.  I've been wracking my brain for a few days on it, but am coming up blank.  Here's the situation: My PCs are exploring an area called the Black Fog.  Without excessive detail, this fog is mentally debilitating to the locals, and the PCs need to find the source and destroy it.  A fair number of things happen leading up to this moment, but the PCs find themselves approaching a dorment volcano that is the source of this Black Fog.  The lava channels have been filled with a dense, eerie, fetid fog.  This fog is on the cusp of becoming sludge, yet clings to its vaporous existance.  A trail leads up the mountain, and if the PCs so choose to climb, they'll fight their way up with a combat or two.  At the summit, they catch one of the mountain's defenders hopping on a disc (think Tensor's Floating Disc), and descending into the caldera and being lost from sight in this horrible fog.  Eventually, the PCs will figure out they need to descend into the caldera on similar discs to find the source.  As they descend into the heart of the mountain, it is deafeningly silent as the fog gets thicker the lower they go.  At the bottom of the mountain, they find a black dragon, whom they can either fight to destroy the fog (the moderately boring solution) or negotiate with to eliminate the fog (the more fun solution).  I'm hoping they choose to talk with the dragon instead of just charging in to fight.  I've got some neat thoughts on what to do for that. But my question is on this descent into the caldera on the discs.  In my mind, that's a pretty neat piece in this string of events, and I want to do something with it.  Something to make it cooler or more exciting.  Some examples would be a 3D combat on these discs (that'd be hard to work though) or have something chasing them that they can't see.  Stuff like that.  Anyone have thoughts on what I can do with this event?  It's neat as is, but I don't want to miss an opportunity to completely terrify my PCs if I can.
#2 silent_stone Jul 22, 2010 16:52:13	Start the fight with the black dragon while they are descending on the discs.  It would make a good stage of the Angry DM's Boss Fight concept (I just discovered this blog today and intend to use his idea eventually myself).  If you don't use his idea, just start the fight on the discs and when the dragon gets bloodied, have it retreat into the fog and go off to its lair to heal and wait for the final confrontation.
#3 Grimbus Jul 23, 2010 8:33:36	Have a chase scene. Put some goblin or kobold sentries onto some discs and have them chase the players. Duel on Tenser's Floating discs...
#4 pnxer Jul 25, 2010 12:40:47	Artificially restrict the battle space.  The player or monsters can choose to be either High, Medium, or Low.  Melee attacks can only be made against targets on the same plane.  You can put colored tokens or pieces of paper next to/under minis in order to keep track of an entity's current elevation. You could use the dragon to do this as well, the monster can already fly and operate in this model.  You have to be aware however that this model unfairly favors ranged attack, but that's part of the challenge for the melee characters here. All you have to do to keep it interesting is create a rule that requires you to change elevation with a different action type.  Moving horizontally you can do in the standard fashion, but declare that it takes a minor action and some force of will to make the disc change elevation up or down one level.   To make it really interesting, let combat advantage apply when you are under or above an opponent.
#5 ahab_ Jul 27, 2010 15:29:41	These are all great ideas.  Thanks.  I'll see how I can work this in.