Best Random Encounters

[Zeromage1]

What are some of the best/most creative random encounters you have have done or played in your past games?

[FrznTear]

I used a Night Twist from mmIII and paired it up with a level 9 druid.

The druid knew the party was coming and had plenty of time to prepare so he boosted his str up to 34 and wis up to 30(bite of the weretiger, owls insight, owls wisdom and that druid acf that gives you dragon stat boosts instead of wild shape)

The Night Twist had some slight modifications to it's spell's, I gave it Quill Blast re-flavoring it as bark. It also had Vortex of Teeth flavored at leaves.

The set up is a fairly large but enclosed room, the Tree is hard to see as it has created a Deeper darkness affect on itself, the party goes to investigate and as they get closer cut their feet on the spell Spike Stones which surround the tree. Once they are close enough in the Druids animal Companion Reveals itself and the Druid who is still hiding in the night twist casts Eye of the Hurricane while the night twist casts Vortex of Leaves.

Those who fail their save(pumped up to DC 24) get pushed through the Spike Stones on the ground getting ground down into pulp.

Those who stay outside the hurricane range are subject to the Druid casting Call Lightning storm which gets its damage enhanced from Eye of The Storm.

When party members do get past the Hurricane by making their saves or teleporting in they are subject to the ongoing Vortex of Leaves and Bark blast. They then burst down the animal companion(badger!) thinking it is a wild shaped druid. The tree is difficult to cut down due to the druid having cast barkskin on it. Those who engage the druid in melee combat are in for a nasty surprise, he can full power attack for +15/+10 for 1d10+32 damage due to Shillelagh and Spikes being cast on his quarterstaff.

A party of four level 12 fought this, a Crusader, an Alchemist a Swift Hunter Dagger thrower and a Factotum assassin. It ended with everyone down from nonlethal damage except for the Crusader who managed to crit the tree with a powerful maneuver. The druid who was up in the tree fell to the ground and was knocked out from falling damage.

Pulling out the bark (from quill blast) afterwards almost killed the alchemist.



Another encounter I want to run is one where the part is traveling through a forest and Centaur Monks swing down from the trees using Spring Attack + Scorpions grasp to snatch away some juicy targets and take them away into the tree tops never to be seen again.

[Zeromage1]

How about some non-combat encounters? Someone told me about an encounter they had where the heroes came across a stone hand sticking out of the ground with it's palm up. If the heroes placed an item on it, it took it into the ground and re-emerged 1d6 days later with an enchantment on the item.

[Malimar]

Once upon a time, I randomly rolled a ton of low-level spellcasters in a group. They wrecked the PCs for the first few rounds, and it seemed like the bad guys were about to win, then they ran out of spells, and the tide turned in favor of the PCs. It made for a very cinematic battle.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Centaur Monks swing down from the trees[/B] using Spring Attack + Scorpions grasp to snatch away some juicy targets and take them away into the tree tops never to be seen again.

You sir, have blown my mind. I can't even conceive this.

Now, are we just doing memorable, or are we also doing the hilarious?

[FrznTear]

How about some non-combat encounters? Someone told me about an encounter they had where the heroes came across a stone hand sticking out of the ground with it's palm up. If the heroes placed an item on it, it took it into the ground and re-emerged 1d6 days later with an enchantment on the item.


That is pretty neat, pretty sure my group would drop whatever quest they are on to find a way to go after it the hand.

Charming a monster with a burrow speed
Digging with Shovels
Blasting a tunnel with fireballs
Whirling blade with a gargantuan greatsword
inventing heavy duty mining equipment
hiring an army of dwarves to diggy diggy hole
etc

The party will likely embarrass the campaigns villains by breaching into Khyber and unleashing untold horrors into Eberron.


Once upon a time, I randomly rolled a ton of low-level spellcasters in a group. They wrecked the PCs for the first few rounds, and it seemed like the bad guys were about to win, then they ran out of spells, and the tide turned in favor of the PCs. It made for a very cinematic battle.

That is awesome!
"Time to finish you off! uhhh, acid splash?... *gulp*"

[Zeromage1]

Once upon a time, I randomly rolled a ton of low-level spellcasters in a group. They wrecked the PCs for the first few rounds, and it seemed like the bad guys were about to win, then they ran out of spells, and the tide turned in favor of the PCs. It made for a very cinematic battle.

Very nice.

[sumptesh]

I prefer using monsters as NPCs in dungeons so I can keep players on their toes, not knowing if the next encounter might be helpful or just out to kill them. My favorite was a roving band of myconids who kept popping up in some catacombs. Some times they would cause combat, and some times they offered information or gear.

[Anxe]

A vampire taking shelter in a village's temple for the day after bloodsucking some people. The vampire was easily staked, but what came afterwards was beautiful. The party ended up blaming the priest for bringing the vampire into town and turned him over to the village mob for justice. He hadn't known the vampire was hiding in the temple! Poor priest!

[Dr. Cliché]

A recent one involved our party coming across a dread wraith in a dungeon-ish place, who said we couldn't pass unless we each made an offering of our blood.

My LG character wasn't really eager to give a creature of evil his blood, but nor were we desperate to fight it.

So, one of our group (a druid/warshaper) had the idea of tunelling through a side passage to bypass the wraith. He cast soften earth and stone on a suitable section of wall, and started to dig (I believe he was spending most of his time as a dire ape at this point). The DM informed us that it was still a laborious task, and we'd be here a while. Not to be deterred, the warshaper immediately changed into a Dire-Mole. That made us smile.

[Ragnorrok]

I was doing a practice game with one of my players to help me practice DMing and stuff and he was trying out his character to see if he liked his class or not. He got a mission to go save a farm house from gnolls and later found out they were undead gnolls being controlled by a gnoll necromancer. So it basically turned into Night of the Living Dead where there were zombie gnolls smashing through windows and stuff. Practically his only help was the big muscular mustachiod farmer father who we nicknamed Mangar Woodstock. It got into the final stretch where mangar and the player had successfully destroyed the zombie gnolls and the necromancer revealed himself. The player stayed in the back and attempted to shoot him with arrows (poorly) while Mangar fought the necromancer hand-to-hand. The necromancer cast ability point draining spells making Mangar too weak to fight. The player was at low health too. The fight almost seemed lost as Mangar was almost dead and the player was too but then Mangar pulled a double crit out of nowhere and almost one shot killed the necromancer in a blaze of glory and the necromancer having his arm torn off by the blow fled (i wanted to make him a recurring character).

[Zeromage1]

A little on the cliche side, but someone told me about another one:

A ranger stops by the group's camp one night and gives them advice on the trail ahead, places to camp and a tavern where they can get good rates if they mention his name. All his advice is good, but when they mention his name at the tavern, they're told he died years ago on that very road.