Looking for fun, homebrew encounters!

[Gan The Grey]

Alright playground. Time to work those creative muscles.

I'm putting together an E6 setting, and am working on incorporating a Mark Hunting Guild, a group of professional adventurers that hunt down unique monsters and deliver them screaming to the gods. However, my entire setting is based more on player tactics, creativity, and detective work as opposed to numbers and die rolls, so your standard monster just won't really get those juices pumping, as they all know the MM's from front to back.

Here's an example of the things I'm looking for. Party takes on a mark quest out on the edge of civilization in a recently settled bit of hills. A strange hard-shelled beasty has been gobbling up sheep, and no weapon can seem to harm it. First, they need to talk to villagers. Then maybe track it down, encounter it and run, do some research, experiment a bit. Roleplay, not just fight.

The monster has a fast healing, and retreats into its impenetrable shell to heal once its take too much damage. The shell can be broken, but long spike threaten to harm any attacks directed at it.

An interesting encounter, yes maybe? I'm looking for things like that. Any fun ideas?

[Forever Curious]

...so are you looking for this monster specifically, or just stange monsters like this?

[Gan The Grey]

Basically, I'm looking for homebrew puzzle encounters, and by puzzle encounters, I mean encounters that take more thought and leg-work than 'you encounter this monster in the forest, you fight it, you win.'

I'm not looking for you to give me a specific build, I don't want you to stat the whole thing out for me, I'm really looking for good ideas for interest fights that, if you go into it blind, would be very hard to beat. The more research, the more prep, the better a party would do. And they won't be able to metagame it because the creature will have abilities that don't exactly exist.

Another example: Four small fire elementals that release a 5-foot radius blast every round for a small amount of damage, but it heals the other elementals in range. If they heal more than their max HP, they gain the excess as temporary HP. If any one elemental gains temp HP equal to their max HP, all four combine into a large elemental and heals to full, and his fire radius is much stronger with a larger range.

[Forever Curious]

Ah. Okay. I might have something then...

The Death Ringer: This creature resembles an angel clad in black. It levitates a few inches above the ground as it floats from place to place, carrying an iron handbell.

The Death Ringer constantly rings the bell, immitating a Wail of the Banshee spell, but with a low enough DC as to not instantly kill the party. The Death Ringer cannot be harmed by any means: weapons phase through it, spells are instantly countered, etc. as long as the bell can be heard.

So, the only way to kill it is to somehow silence the bell. This will cause it to flee, but then it can be defeated normally.

[Gan The Grey]

Ah. Okay. I might have something then...

The Death Ringer: This creature resembles an angel clad in black. It levitates a few inches above the ground as it floats from place to place, carrying an iron handbell.

The Death Ringer constantly rings the bell, immitating a Wail of the Banshee spell, but with a low enough DC as to not instantly kill the party. The Death Ringer cannot be harmed by any means: weapons phase through it, spells are instantly countered, etc. as long as the bell can be heard.

So, the only way to kill it is to somehow silence the bell. This will cause it to flee, but then it can be defeated normally.

Wow. That's exceedingly ANGRY. I like where you are going with that, enough so that I'll probably end up using it, just...with less 'someone just scratched up the paint on my new car and my best friend is humping my girl and my porn stash just caught fire' to it.

But overall, me likey! Keep 'em coming!

[Rauthiss]

The party is walking through a dungeon, and finds a chandelier of shrunken heads. They scream every round, resulting in an effect similar to the Shout spell. One or more effects will temporarily silence them (DM's discretion here).

A few rooms later, they come to a crystalline statue with a key item in the center of it (Or a crystalline golem). It is protected against all methods of attack (DR and energy resistance 10 universal or something), but the chandelier will deal it full damage + more.

ALSO: Monsters with Hallucinogenic poison. Watch in glee as the party fights against spiderman.

[Forever Curious]

Tee hee, glad you like it.

How about this: while traveling in the woods the party encounters a strange patch of mushrooms of unknown type. They are not poisonous but grant no magical abilities.

Later, they are encountered by a a creature that will continue killing people unless they present them with the mushrooms. If the party has to go back and get them, a hag-like witch will have stolen them, but will be willing to trade some for the capapce of a Shu-dir. The Shu-dir is a magical beast dwelling in the ice caves to the north. In order to kill the Shu-dir and thus retrieve the carapace, they need the bell of the Dead Ringer, whose sound is the only thing powerful enough to kill it.

Hellish enough for you?

[Rauthiss]

The party walks into a room and finds a pristine crystal orb that registers a strong enchantment or transmutation aura. However, after carrying the item with them, they still cannot figure out what it does. An identify spell later, it's not magical at all.

You can have tons of fun with Magic Aura, especially in combination with illusions or contingency. Just imagine - the key item is at the end of the hallway, but it is protected by a big scary magical beast that prowls around it. The way to the item? Walk through the beast. It's an illusion with a Magic Aura saying it's not magical.

[Gan The Grey]

I like both of these, but your monster that can only be slain by the bell of the Dead Ringer made me realize something. I'm wanting monsters that the players, not the characters, have to figure out how to kill. The only way they would know that the Dead Ringer bell is the weakness of scary beasty is if I told them it was through a knowledge roll or something.

Your Dead Ringer thing is great, but the other one goes more in the direction of railroading than puzzle. I like it, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't really leave the players something to figure out.

I guess, to be very specific, I'm looking for creatures with interesting qualities that the players have to figure a way around. I don't want it to be up to me for them to win. I want their success to be entirely on them. And remember, these are Mark Hunters. It is their job to hunt down dangerous beasties that are plaguing society. Sometimes they are required to kill it, sometimes capture it.

[DracoDei]

See my Acorn Folly (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5419468). It works on insane logic, but if you play it right, then BOTH the players AND the characters will have some thinking to do... you may have to tweak the DR, SR, and energy resistances to get it right, but it is exactly what you are looking for I think. Basically the party should be BARELY able to damage it with really good hits the first time around, and if they think to grab some acorns off the ground (which will only be there TO grab once they damage it, and then only in one or two squares near where it was hit), then that should give some good bonuses to the research rolls once they get to an arcane library. There should be NO prior records of the creature ANYWHERE, but they should be able to reverse-engineer it enough to figure out its weakness (with clarity or explaination depending on how good they RP and roll... if they tank that part, then tell them to go back and fight it again to get sample acorns... yes, that means they fight it THREE times in such a case).

[Gan The Grey]

See my Acorn Folly (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5419468). It works on insane logic, but if you play it right, then BOTH the players AND the characters will have some thinking to do... you may have to tweak the DR, SR, and energy resistances to get it right, but it is exactly what you are looking for I think. Basically the party should be BARELY able to damage it with really good hits the first time around, and if they think to grab some acorns off the ground (which will only be there TO grab once they damage it, and then only in one or two squares near where it was hit), then that should give some good bonuses to the research rolls once they get to an arcane library. There should be NO prior records of the creature ANYWHERE, but they should be able to reverse-engineer it enough to figure out its weakness (with clarity or explaination depending on how good they RP and roll... if they tank that part, then tell them to go back and fight it again to get sample acorns... yes, that means they fight it THREE times in such a case).

I like it, and this is EXACTLY the type of thing I'm looking for. Good show!

[Wannabehero]

Here is a partial puzzle encounter I spun up for my players a few months ago

The Blind Sentinel
This encounter best takes place in a moderate sized room. The premise of the encounter is a magical statue centered on a pedestal reaching out of a deep and smooth-walled pit in the center of the room. The statue reacts to any light source by casting a Greater Darkness or Improved Darkness or whatever-have-you spell centered on the light source with a moderate radius. These spells should last a significant but not prohibitive amount of time, usually six rounds or some such. Following casting the Darkness spell, the statue launches a spray of needles, possibly poisoned, or some other level-appropriate attack into the area that was darkened.

The statue serves a significant purpose to the room encounter. Either there is a door in the room that requires visual clues or cues necessary to be opened that the darkness spells prohibit, or there are dark-vision centric monsters in the area (such as grimlocks, morlocks, dark creepers, ect.), or both. Perhaps this is a religious effigy in a dark-creature temple, ect.

Players with the ability to see in darkness will be able to see and move about normally except in darkened areas (which blocks darkvision as well), but any obstacles or challendes in the room that require light will be insurmountable until the statue has been dealt with. Attempting to cast magic spells at the statue (specifically for higher level players) reveals the statue has been warded against magic.

Defeating this statue should prove not to difficult, but requiring some thinking and skill checks by the players (I love skill checks while in the combat). Using the statue to blind itself by casting a darkness spell close or adjacent to the statue between it and a new light source could block LOS of the statue to the light source for a few subsequent rounds. Alternatively, players could attempt to blindfold the statue by leaping or crossing the pit and covering the statue's eyes or head. Extremely strong characters might attempt to knock the statue off the pedestal and into the pit.

Hope this helps.

Edit: All the players at the table cheered when the Barbarian in the group thought to toss his bedroll over the statue. Weird how sometimes the character with the lowest INT score is the cleverest player in the group.

[FlamingKobold]

Here's one:

The Weeping Bride

In a small glen in a forest near tow, there is a natural spring. It is only about ten feet in diamter, but is the only home to a tiny aquatic faerie. This water fey is extremely violent and impulsive, but has no real way to damage anyone except trying to grab them or bite them.* Long ago, a woman by the name of Isabella Pelle was going to be married. As she was walking through the forest happily, she came across the spring. She leaned in to take a look at her reflection. The faerie, knowing it needed someone to protect it, leapt out of the water and pulled he into the fountain. It managed to maintain the pin long enough to drown her, and she rose as a ghost, under the control of no one. This was the incarnation of her grief, as now she wouldn't be married and she scared away everyone, including her would-be husband. Sad and lonely, she went back to the fountain. The faerie, planning on this and making sure she hadn't seen him when he brought her death, began to comfort her. She, being an extremely vain person, like the fey because he wasn't afraid of her and he complimented her all the time. They lived together for years, and whenever a creature threatened the fountain or the faerie, she would attack it with her incorporeal touch.

The party approaches the edgeof the glen and hear them conversing. They notice that every other sentence that the faerie says is a compliment. If they jump into the glen or threaten the creature in the fountain, the fey commands, "Oh beatiful one, please save me from these transgressors!" and she attacks.** Give them the opportunity to retreat, if they dont figure it out. People in the town, once the players describe her appearance, will reveal that she was extremely vain. This is common knowledge. The trick is that the woman will listen to whomever compliments her. The party needs to make her like them more than the fey. This can be solved by pure roleplaying, or opposed diplomacy checks.*** If they succeed, she is paralyzed with inaction, flees, attacks the fey, or any other suitable action. From there, the PCs can easily catch the faerie, who is slow on the ground, and succeed.

Yeah.. .that was very involved, sorry. You can make it more exciting by prolonging their ability to figure it out, somehow learning the backstory with the drowning and thus deducing what needs to be done, or making it less obvious that she needs compliments.

*note: It doesn't have sharp teeth or anything like that. This would deal 1 point of non lethal damage. Its grapple modifier is surprisingly large at +8, including the penalty for size.

**make her suitably strong enough to easily kill them, provided there is enough time. Don't let the party run in, grab the faerie, and get out.

***Give the fey a +15 diplomacy modifier, but remember that the PCs can use aid another.