Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Kilsek_of_Sheverash Jun 05, 2009 11:29:23	Which are your favorites? I'm trying to spice up encounters for my players by using more terrain features of all kinds, and being more creative with the encounter environment - including "interactive" elements that may encourage more Acrobatic Stunts by both PCs and monsters (i.e. the kicking the ogre into the burning coals example on DMG p. 42). So here I am asking - both Players and DMs: Which features do you enjoy most? Ones out of the fantastic terrain features like Fonts of Power, Bloodrock? Good ol' pits, hazards or traps as part of a monster fight? Or more creative ones, like Tapestries being used to grapple, the classic Chandelier swing, etc.?
#2 sessile Jun 05, 2009 11:40:48	If the monsters are in their lairs and are intelligent, then be sure to use terrain and traps that the monsters can take advantage of. My favorites are pits, ledges and other similar dangers. Lots of pushing and sliding in this game. Also I like the idea of something being dropped on or pulled over someone to trap / delay them. Like a net or tapestry. Terrain and elements that requires / allows other skills to be used. Including noncombat skills. On occasion and only if it makes since, allow characters to talk their way out of a fight. Especially if what they are saying makes since to stop the fight, not just relying on die rolls and skill modifiers.
#3 kieferz Jun 05, 2009 11:47:50	Half the stuff found in an average bar. I ran a fight in a bar (completely unplanned), and the players wound up using a lot of stuff to their advantage. One of the dwarven patrons they were fighting wound up rolling on the floor trying to get ale out of his eyes for three rounds after the ranger threw a half-empty mug at him. The cleric pulled a barrel out of the wall and threw it at a pair of dwarves, knocking them prone and covering the floor in ale (difficult terrain) when it broke. The warlock teleported into the rafters after his first kill and stayed up there until one of the dwarves managed to jump high enough to hack through the beam he was standing on. Very fun fight. I've also seen a rogue in another campaign run under a table (halfling) and start stabbing through it at the creatures fighting on top of it. (Total concealment, but combat advantage, so -3 to hit in exchange for sneak attack) And a ranger wedge himself in a "chimney" with his feet while firing his bow into the fight. And then there's possibly my favorite fight ever, which involved a tower with a bunch of holes blasted in it, and a solo wizard which floated around the outside shooting through the holes. There was a lot of running from cover to cover, jumping 20 foot gaps, swinging on ropes, and at the very end, tackling the wizard out of midair. There are a LOT of things you can do with terrain in 4th edition. I've got a short list of things to put in, many of which I haven't used yet. Good thing I've got all summer to plan my campaign next fall.
#4 Shiftkitty Jun 05, 2009 12:54:37	While I don't use it very often, my favorite is the teeter-totter floor. The first one they encounter may have the pivot point in the middle, but after several adventures, I'll throw one at them with an off-center pivot. Now they have to figure out weights, who to position where, how to move everyone and everything across, etc. Many more adventures later, I'll give them a corridor with multiple sections and multiple pivot points, a la Grimtooth. I are evil... My second favorite is the bridge. Sometimes it's wide, sometimes it's narrow. Sometimes there are things to hold onto (hey, the bad guys don't want to fall off, either!), but sometimes it's just a natural bridge or a log across a ravine or chasm. Toss in some boulder-hurling giants, a balor (or balrog), a honked-off dragon, or some flying critters and it's a recipe for fun!
#5 AbdulAlhazred Jun 05, 2009 13:49:53	Yeah, a slope can be fun. Rolling logs and boulders down at things, that was amusing. I had a camp full of tents with hobgoblins in them once that the party could knock over or light on fire while the mobs tried to get out. swinging on ropes from one ledge to another was good. The "Indiana Jones" scenario with wagons full of treasure was a good one (well, in theory, the Warlock blew off the wheel on the lead wagon with a couple of EB shots, lol). Bridges are OK, but don't forget to add some other way the PCs can get at the mobs, otherwise it is just a choke point and those are usually not much fun. How about a floor where each turn some squares sink down 10' or rise up 10' above the basic floor level? The mobs can control this with a control panel, so they can raise up obstacles and divide up the party in random ways. hehe. I had a mine gallery where every 10' was a support post. Either side could knock one out with 15 damage and cause a collapse around it. If enough of them went then the whole place started to go. Kind of interesting. Neither side REALLY wanted the whole roof coming down, but it was hard for them to resist a chance to hurt the enemy now and then, lol. One adventure featured some tar pits. Tar plus fire = ouch! Depending on which side got tossed into them that could be bad or good. A battle where the action was taking place in the tops of trees while a raging flood covered the ground down below. Moving around required climb checks and if you fell acrobatics checks to catch yourself and swing from branches and vines. The quintessential ore cars on a track in a mine with both sides racing down the tracks and switching switches etc. Of course the mine had to start collapsing somewhere in there too...
#6 funkyv Jun 07, 2009 12:27:31	Had to fight in a warehouse and there were crates being knocked over, climbed on, pushed in front of people. If it's big enough you can have it become mazelike with enemies popping out of crates or shooting from the catwalk.
#7 Novacat Jun 07, 2009 15:54:40	I recently ran an encounter in this room. The villain was able to periodically split himself up into multiple copies, each one having its own set of actions, but sharing HP. He started as two bodies, and gained another when reduced to 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4 HPs, for a total of 5 copies by the end of the fight. The Central Circle: Beginning your turn in the big circle in the middle would cause 5 damage, but grants you a +2 to all attack rolls on that turn. The Outer Circles: When moving into a square that's part of any of the outer circles, you're randomly teleported to a square in any of the circles. I rolled a d6 and a d4, to determine which circle, and which square, respectively. The Ley Lines: Crossing a Ley Line, even through forced movement, causes a character to lose a healing surge. Because the party was fighting a solo enemy, the villain took 10 damage when he crossed a ley line instead. The Walls: Nothing special about the walls; just noting that the squares on either side are walls. Their positioning means that while it's possible to travel from one side of the room to the other without interacting with any of the features, there's a very narrow and specific path one must take. My players commented on how interesting that fight was, so I consider the design a success.
#8 Kilsek_of_Sheverash Jun 07, 2009 18:04:24	Novacat, very cool fight. May I ask what tool you used to sketch out the encounter? I'm looking for a simple grid and sketching tool or app like what you posted to design my own encounter areas ahead of time. Thanks!
#9 Mad_Jack Jun 07, 2009 18:53:54	One that I stole from somebody on the Reaper forums... I think it was "Ironmonger" who originally ran this scenario as a pulp-style tabletop skirmish game using 1920's era characters. It requires a lot of map space. The PCs and bad guys are fighting on the frozen shoreline of a wide river when the ice they are standing on starts to break up. Suddenly, the whole fight area is now small chunks of terrain separated by open space that requires athletics checks to jump across. Some PCs and bad guys end up on each ice floe, resulting in smaller individual combats, although ranged attackers can still shoot at anyone. At the beginning of each round, the floating ice chunks end up further down-river from their starting point. Any PC or bad guys that are in the water are also moved an equal number of squares downstream. At the end of each round, each ice chunk shifts randomly up to 2 squares in any direction, possibly crushing anyone who was pushed off into the water between them. Any PCs or bad guys that didn't end up on the ice when it broke up or were tossed off and swam to shore have to try to run along the riverbank and make athletics checks to jump onto the nearest piece of ice or get left behind. Obviously, the ice chunks shoulldn't be moving incredibly fast or you'll lose a lot of combatants. PCs should be able to swim fast enough to catch up to the ice. Any PC pushed off the ice should have to make an athletics roll on their next turn to get back on the nearest ice floe, or perform a small skill challenge to make it back to shore (where they have to go through the whole process of getting back onto the ice floes again). Any bad guy pushed into the water who's pushed more than one square away from an ice floe has to swim to shore - if they're still next to an ice floe at the end of the push, they get back on during their next turn. Minions who get tossed into the water die whether they take damage or not. Bad guys who get thrown into the river and can't make it back onto the ice or to shore in time to catch up to the rest of the fight should be considered defeated. If you want to make it interesting, have the bad guys possess an item or hostage that the PCs need to acquire... And have a giant waterfall some distance down the river, giving the PCs a limited number of turns to wrestle the prize away from the bad guys. It's no longer about killing the bad guys, but becomes all about getting close enough to the person holding the prize to grab the item/knockout the guy holding it/etc... PCs are better off attempting to evade the other bad guys or toss them into the river rather than kill them. If they get the prize/rescue the hostage and get off the ice floes in time, they win and get xp for all the bad guys. If they don't get it and have to abandon the fight to save themselves, they get only the xp for the bad guys they actually defeated. If somebody goes over the waterfall, bad guys die (unless you want the head bad guy to miraculously survive and disappear) and PCs end up unconscious and at 0hp (but stable) floating in the water at the bottom. The rest of the party should be able to get down to the bottom of the falls in plenty of time to rescue them if they try, although you could also make that a skill challenge - perhaps they may be able to take the prize off the drowned body of the head bad guy... It's a long and complicated fight, but definitely worth trying to pull off if it fits into the plot of your adventure.
#10 Novacat Jun 07, 2009 20:37:12	Novacat, very cool fight. May I ask what tool you used to sketch out the encounter? I'm looking for a simple grid and sketching tool or app like what you posted to design my own encounter areas ahead of time. Thanks! AppleWorks. It's an ancient word processor and drawing tool, built on top of an even more ancient program called ClarisWorks, that, back in the day, competed (poorly) with Microsoft Office. It hasn't been updated or supported for about 5 years now. Instead, there's iWork, which looks like something I would like very much, but I can't afford it right now, so iWork with what iHave. Any similar drawing program with a snap-to-grid option should yield comparable results.
#11 Kilsek_of_Sheverash Jun 07, 2009 20:38:11	The PCs and bad guys are fighting on the frozen shoreline of a wide river when the ice they are standing on starts to break up. Suddenly, the whole fight area is now small chunks of terrain separated by open space that requires athletics checks to jump across. Some PCs and bad guys end up on each ice floe, resulting in smaller individual combats, although ranged attackers can still shoot at anyone. At the beginning of each round, the floating ice chunks end up further down-river from their starting point. Any PC or bad guys that are in the water are also moved an equal number of squares downstream. At the end of each round, each ice chunk shifts randomly up to 2 squares in any direction, possibly crushing anyone who was pushed off into the water between them. Now that's an encounter with truly interactive environment! Very, very cool. Reminds me a little of that scene in King Arthur where the two armies meet on a frozen lake that starts to break apart - due to their sheer weight. Was a great cinematic battle / natural disaster all in one.
#12 1_ton_ghost Jun 09, 2009 12:50:02	(1st-3.5 ed for me) Graveyard Terrain (Libris Mortis or Heroes of Horror, unsure of which). It's fantastic; lots of Cover (headstones, mausoleums, cenotaphs, etc) afford many AC, Hide, etc attempts. Hopping up (Jump) on a sarcophagus or headstone grants Higher Ground/better Line of Sight. Mausoleums/walls are reasonably tall (Climb). Floral arrangements, manicured greens/lawns, trees grant Concealment. Connecting tunnels via catacombs & auseries make skirmishing/ambush very attractive along w/ Surprise granted from Concealment & Cover. Locks & traps in various tombs afford good exploration and wide skill coverage. Good excuse to employ [Good] or [Evil] effects. Fixed walls/gate help hem in the PCs vs. an open forest where it's very easy & attractive to run "off the map" into wherever. Nearly a game mechanic to engage each of the 4 archetypes (tank, scoundrel, divine, arcane). Keeps it intriguing. And, lastly, I'm a sucker for undead. Beach Terrain (Stormwrack). Great dynamic opposites (land/water/shore), fixed points of geography = easy mapping (land ends @ 'x', water starts @ 'y', likely rocks edging off 'z', whatever), static flanks. Opportunity to employ rare Swim & amphibious combat. Drowning a threat. Rare amphibious monster that can make landfall, etc. Bar fight (kieferz, excellent fight/encounter btw). Plenty of Improvised Weapons (see CompWarrior; broken bottles, chairs & tables for Disarm bonuses, darts & pool ques, fire & top shelf alcohol = fun, etc). Ambushing someone in the privvy has always been gold. Dart game gone awry, etc. Gambling/pick pocketing opportunities. Bullrush someone into the fireplace. Tables and booths provide lots of cover. Balcony overhangs make for good sniper spots x, y, z dimensional play, etc. Ice flow/river fight (Mad_Jack, also very cool encounter) Affords immense possibility and random hazards/boons. Very compelling. We engage hypothermia rules, Balance checks, anything and everything we can. Urban (Cityscape & DMG predominating but not exclusive to) Hardest to employ, most deadly IRL & in game. x, y, z (building height) planes makes for careful scrutiny/sniperville; bell towers, aqueducts, crawl spaces, roof tops, utility allies, etc. Cover everywhere, a good amount of Concealment too depending on time of day or natural growth. Good excuse to employ terrain complications & FX (manmade). Hardest to map though; most features per square on a grid = more detailing/drawing. Battlefield Terrain (Heroes of Battle). Kind of a misnomer as a battle could be in a forest, desert, day care center, etc. Still, being able to differentiate between Light/Heavy Debris vs. Difficult Ground is nice (immense variety is good). Craters, body piles for Cover, Disguise, re-animation are nice. Earthworks (fraise, pallisade walls, berms, etc) are very handy. Easy excuse to employ Aracane Pollution, oddball FX, wandering monsters, etc. It's the most eccelctic of all of them IMO.