DM or PC Experience Needed: Interesting Combat Situations!

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Hey all,

Still in the brainstorming portion of my campaign, but my favorite thing to incorporate into my games are interesting combat situations, memorable encounters, and situations when ingenuity helps more than a loaded stat block.
What are some cool/fun/interesting combat situations that you have DMed or played?
What made these interesting?
What are some tactical situations I can place my PCs in (surrounded, multiple factions, strategic objects/landmarks, hazards)?
What are some non-combat situations that can play out to be as fun as combat? How would you put these together?

I realize its a lot of questions, but I find the discussion is more plentiful and helpful when i give you guys a lot to work with.
Thanks!

[GreatDane]

What are some cool/fun/interesting combat situations that you have DMed or played?
What made these interesting?

Off the top of my head, I recall a combat situation I DMed with a radiant servant of Pelor, a Dragon Disciple, a master thrower, and an elemental savant that was really into necromancy. The party was level 11, and competing with an army of monstrous humanoids to find an artifact in the mountains. They found the artifact shortly before a trio of ogre mage scouts. After defeating two of the scouts, the third one fled, returning shortly thereafter with the encounter in question: a veritable battalion of monstrous humanoid troops. The encounter involved:


Twenty-two orc berserkers (level 7 barbarians)
Ten orc battle priests (level 3 clerics)
Three ogre tempests (MMIV)
The returning ogre mage herself

That seems like a lot, but this was a fully rested party forewarned by clerical divinations. Potions were consumed, plans were devised (about 15 minutes of real-life planning around the table while divinations were made).

So the army wanders into the room, a large cavern with a high ceiling. The rogue (master thrower) and cleric were waiting on the opposite end of the cavern, out of range of darkvision; the wizard and figher (dragon disciple) were using fly spells to stay out of darkvision vertically. As the army edges further into the room (they're pretty sure the PCs are in here, thanks to the ogre mage), they begin to split up. Realizing that they had waited a bit too long, the party enacts their plan - a circular blade barrier around about half of the orcs, followed by a fireball. The master thrower jumps in for a round of sneak attacks on the other half of the orcs, while the dragon disciple flies down to engage the ogres.

So, what made this encounter fun?

Length was one factor. The number of foes meant that the PCs were enjoying a combat that didn't end after the master thrower dropped 12d6 sneak attack dice in the surprise round. I also enjoyed actually wearing the PCs down, rather than seeing them murderhobo through a few encounters and call it a day when spells/hit points were looking low-ish.
In particular, I also remember this encounter because it allowed each particular PC to utilize their specific talents in an enjoyable way.


The wizard got to rain fire on a room full of baddies, staying out of the monsters' reach for most of the combat. She also had a skeletal dragon at her command at this point, and had lots of fun having it chasing orcs around inside the blade barier, nipping off their arms and terrifying them into braving the barrier.
The dragon disciple got to go toe-to-toe with the three powerful ogres and eventually came out on top - a big moment for a character whose "draconic pride" was a major trait. He also enjoyed slaying some of the orcs - particularly the battle priests healing the ogres - in one blow.
The cleric was all over the place, providing buff spells, healing, and flanking wherever it was needed. The player also enjoyed being a major part of the party's plan, having contributed both the blade barrier and finiding information through divinations.
The rogue was a big fan of once-per-day tricks and the like - skill tricks, charges-per-day items, etc. - and got to use just about every one of them in this encounter.

Ultimately, I think the important lesson I learned from this combat was that most encounters should include something for every player. If the BBEG has an impenetrable AC and DR/infinity, give the fighter some mooks to behead while the wizard takes down the boss with spells. If the undead are the flavor of the day, be sure to include some traps and other skill-based challenges for the rogue. I think most players have sat through encounters, or even entire sessions, in which their character feels relatively useless. Avoiding that feeling goes a long way toward making adventures both memorable and enjoyable.

[Fenryr]

Eberron. We were level 3 and we were in the sewers and that means lots and lots of tunnels. Suddenly, a fight! And every turn the DM rolled a d12. What for? The sewers spat unclean water and the unlucky character who was in the random tunnel got covered in dirty liquids. And was still fighting. You may repeat the d12 (or d8 or d6) for other variants: sudden pits, rubble from the ceiling, mechanical traps, stuff like that.

If your party has Good and/or Lawful getting NPC as hostages is quite interesting.

[KingSmitty]

Our half orc batbarian got into a drinking competition with a man with an amulet that didnt let him get drunk, ultimately he was murdered and a hasty prison break full of lvl 1 guards was a fun break in between plot hooks. Granted it was all due to bad decisions being made (half orcs war hammer to the face of the other competitor) but fun nonetheless

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Off the top of my head, I recall a combat situation I DMed with a radiant servant of Pelor, a Dragon Disciple, a master thrower, and an elemental savant that was really into necromancy. The party was level 11, and competing with an army of monstrous humanoids to find an artifact in the mountains. They found the artifact shortly before a trio of ogre mage scouts. After defeating two of the scouts, the third one fled, returning shortly thereafter with the encounter in question: a veritable battalion of monstrous humanoid troops. The encounter involved:


Twenty-two orc berserkers (level 7 barbarians)
Ten orc battle priests (level 3 clerics)
Three ogre tempests (MMIV)
The returning ogre mage herself

That seems like a lot, but this was a fully rested party forewarned by clerical divinations. Potions were consumed, plans were devised (about 15 minutes of real-life planning around the table while divinations were made).

So the army wanders into the room, a large cavern with a high ceiling. The rogue (master thrower) and cleric were waiting on the opposite end of the cavern, out of range of darkvision; the wizard and figher (dragon disciple) were using fly spells to stay out of darkvision vertically. As the army edges further into the room (they're pretty sure the PCs are in here, thanks to the ogre mage), they begin to split up. Realizing that they had waited a bit too long, the party enacts their plan - a circular blade barrier around about half of the orcs, followed by a fireball. The master thrower jumps in for a round of sneak attacks on the other half of the orcs, while the dragon disciple flies down to engage the ogres.

So, what made this encounter fun?

Length was one factor. The number of foes meant that the PCs were enjoying a combat that didn't end after the master thrower dropped 12d6 sneak attack dice in the surprise round. I also enjoyed actually wearing the PCs down, rather than seeing them murderhobo through a few encounters and call it a day when spells/hit points were looking low-ish.
In particular, I also remember this encounter because it allowed each particular PC to utilize their specific talents in an enjoyable way.


The wizard got to rain fire on a room full of baddies, staying out of the monsters' reach for most of the combat. She also had a skeletal dragon at her command at this point, and had lots of fun having it chasing orcs around inside the blade barier, nipping off their arms and terrifying them into braving the barrier.
The dragon disciple got to go toe-to-toe with the three powerful ogres and eventually came out on top - a big moment for a character whose "draconic pride" was a major trait. He also enjoyed slaying some of the orcs - particularly the battle priests healing the ogres - in one blow.
The cleric was all over the place, providing buff spells, healing, and flanking wherever it was needed. The player also enjoyed being a major part of the party's plan, having contributed both the blade barrier and finiding information through divinations.
The rogue was a big fan of once-per-day tricks and the like - skill tricks, charges-per-day items, etc. - and got to use just about every one of them in this encounter.

Ultimately, I think the important lesson I learned from this combat was that most encounters should include something for every player. If the BBEG has an impenetrable AC and DR/infinity, give the fighter some mooks to behead while the wizard takes down the boss with spells. If the undead are the flavor of the day, be sure to include some traps and other skill-based challenges for the rogue. I think most players have sat through encounters, or even entire sessions, in which their character feels relatively useless. Avoiding that feeling goes a long way toward making adventures both memorable and enjoyable.

That sounds like an awesome time for everyone. My hopes are to get there with my party (they'll be starting off at 1 and working up throughout the semester). If I can delve a little deeper into your suggestion... Obviously you want everyone to be involved and enjoying the fruits of the roleplaying and looting. Make them use their magic items instead of stockpiling them, require intricate planning instead of plunging headlong into battle, and give them a variety of enemies that have to be dispatched in different ways. I may have listed a few, or maybe not, but since you seem to know your stuff when it comes to encounters, what are some elements (and I love examples) that can be added to include the different PCs.

Thanks again for your awesome initial reply.

[GreatDane]

what are some elements (and I love examples) that can be added to include the different PCs.
Well, not every PC will shine in every encounter (even if they are "included" - a rogue chucking sling stones at the ooze is technically participating, but the encounter definitely isn't playing to her strengths). That's still fine, though, as long as you include the PCs on a macro level.

Examples? I ran a pre-made adventure (from WoTC, titled "Lest Darkness Rise") that revolved around a wraith sealed in a tomb, the wraith's wizard cohort, and their plan to free the wraith.

The fighter had plenty of corpses to dig his sword into, but was thrown off by the incorporeal boss.
Although the undead in the adventure played to the wizard's strengths (control undead was a popular spell with her), it offset them by featuring a number of golems.
The cleric had plenty to do between turning undead, curing ability damage and casting handy spells like hide from undead.
The rogue probably had the worst time here, since neither undead nor golems are vulnerable to sneak attack, but got a prize for her trouble at the end of the adventure: a +2 undead bane short sword called Deathbreaker.

So while each PC had an important part to play in the adventure as a whole, the individual encounters weren't necessarily constructed for equal participation.

From your suggestions:


Make them use their magic items instead of stockpiling them
Definitely this one, although it's also fun to let the PCs stock up on stuff for a big battle. That said, they're not going to use every single item they've got; I think just about every party winds up with a hodgepodge of unused consumable items at the end of a campaign. (At the end of my last campaign, the guy that kept track of the party's loot read off a list of "stuff at the bottom of the haversack" - CL 5 wands of lightning bolt, magic items that gave per-day bonuses to stuff like breaking down doors, potions of protection from chaos - that was never really useful.)


require intricate planning instead of plunging headlong into battle
This one is fun for the PCs and hard for the DM. The encounter I described above was designed with prepared PCs in mind - I knew that my players would want to see what the ogre mage scout reported to her superiors after she escaped. It would have been extremely difficult had the PCs not shredded/fried half of the army with their initial attack. Encounters that require planning are best used as major battles or boss fights. In other words, make the encounters for which your PCs will plan (the final encounter with the lich, the raid on the dragon's lair) really difficult in order to compensate for their planning. The PCs will feel like their hard work paid off, and you'll still get to run a viable encounter (as opposed to an encounter of average difficulty for which the PCs extensively prepare, which generally results in the DM having the monsters run away or do their best to get in a single attack).


give them a variety of enemies that have to be dispatched in different ways.
This is 100% the key to interesting encounters: variety. Everything I said above basically boils down to "don't do the same thing for every encounter." If there are lots of undead in the tomb, make sure there are traps studding the hallways, too. If the encounters for the day involve a lot of singular big monsters, add in a few groups of minions to spice it up, and make sure that even if the big ones are all the same race, they have slightly different powers - if one gray render has Improved Grapple and related feats, maybe the next has the spellwarped template (MMIII) and fights with more cunning.

[incarnate236]

I constructed a fight on a crashing airship once at lv4. Flight and teleport weren't options yet so they had ten rounds to fix the ship mid combat or kill the attacking drow and steal their hippogriffs.

At the end of the same campaign I also had a fight where they were trapped in a warehouse by swarms of zombies (made with modified mob rules from DM's guide. They had to search the building for the architect of the plague to find out how the original spell was created.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

I'm sure this has been done, but I got the idea from some pc strategy games.

-PCs sent to a battlefield somewhere (preferably indoors or somewhere with lots of choke points and defensible positions)
-They bail out a battalion somewhere, but the general/leader of the battalion is killed
-An imminent counterattack from the enemy is obvious
-The soldiers look to the PCs for tactical guidance.

PCs will get control of a squad of soldiers (or at higher levels, maybe entire ranks), and must tell them where to go and what to do on the battlefield to prepare for the oncoming assault. Just feels like a really cool and rewarding opportunity for low level-ish PCs to fight on a larger scale.

Things like this, I believe, are extremely memorable in a campaign/adventure.

[Alent]

As a player: My group had a fun lowbie encounter once by a river, where we found bandits loading stolen supplies up on a large raft/trimeran moored at a makeshift dock to take them out to sea and presumably into a hidden cave base somewhere.

We fought them in the glade by the river and that started getting ugly for the bandits since our wizard player had discovered earth elemental grapple and earthglide cheese. Aside from the ones disappearing into the ground, our melees were also ripping them up, so they started a running battle towards the raft with tanglefoot bags and thrown weapons as they tried to use the sparsely placed trees as cover from our attacks.

By the time combat got to the raft, they ended up getting on the raft and cutting the moorings. The Melee half of the party got on the raft as it started to drift downstream, and we were as a group able to finish off the last of the bandits before the raft drifted out of Longbow/magic range.

Turned out to be a fun encounter for everyone.

As a DM: I also ran a Marshals, clerics, and Mooks encounter with large numbers of weak mobs similar to the one mentioned above once for a oneoff and the group seemed to enjoy that large quantities of numbers made their munchkin single target pwnage builds struggle to get a win, for a change.

In general, the more "organic" an encounter, the better I think it tends to be. Even easy fights can take on good depth when the guys you're fighting seem to have their own sense of purpose.

[Scorponok]

One of the worst ones I threw at my PCs was one I didn't think would be that much trouble. They were hunting down a necromancer in a cave when two of his followers (both level-8 sorceresses) did the greater invisibility/ice storm combo from a stone ledge above them. They glitterdusted the whole area and one of them finally ran into one. They were around level-10 or 11, but it took a party of 6 PCs quite a bit of resources to overcome that one.

[Strigon]

I think Tucker's Kobolds (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/) suits this nicely.
Also, some interesting places to fight may include a bunch of rocks floating in lava (cliched in the movie business, but good fun for D&D), and a nice one to try might be an area with a bunch of intersecting portals; pop in one, and you're 20 feet away, next to the enemy's leader. Maybe try firing an arrow through one (at a certain penalty) to see if you can hit an enemy behind walls.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

As a player: My group had a fun lowbie encounter once by a river, where we found bandits loading stolen supplies up on a large raft/trimeran moored at a makeshift dock to take them out to sea and presumably into a hidden cave base somewhere.

We fought them in the glade by the river and that started getting ugly for the bandits since our wizard player had discovered earth elemental grapple and earthglide cheese. Aside from the ones disappearing into the ground, our melees were also ripping them up, so they started a running battle towards the raft with tanglefoot bags and thrown weapons as they tried to use the sparsely placed trees as cover from our attacks.

By the time combat got to the raft, they ended up getting on the raft and cutting the moorings. The Melee half of the party got on the raft as it started to drift downstream, and we were as a group able to finish off the last of the bandits before the raft drifted out of Longbow/magic range.

Turned out to be a fun encounter for everyone.

This looks like an awesome encounter, constantly shifting and exciting. The chance to lose the loot on the raft and the quarry you've been fighting is a big incentive for the players to risk everything chasing the barge down.

[Tragak]

I like to mix up the motivations for the fights as much as the setting details. Instead of PCs dealing X amount of damage to NPCs (killing them) before NPCs are able to deal Y amount of damage to PCs (killing them)" the PCs or NPCs are often trying to do something specific that mere HP damage would not prevent.

Remember when Luke Skywalker needed to navigate the Death Star trench to deliver a precision strike, Darth Vader was trying to shoot him down, but Luke couldn't afford to turn around and fight back? That's where my tables tend to have the most fun.

_____

For example, one of my BBEGs was an Epic level Lich Cleric named Bloodsauger Nightshroud, High Priest of Nerull. The party in that campaign (Catfolk Barbarian named Mairsarshas, Kobold Wizard named Tangri, Human Cleric of Kord named Sharek) was not Epic level at first, so they had never fought Nightshroud directly, but they had scored several victories against his lieutenants.

One scene that particularly stands out in my our memories is when Nightshroud tried to cover a city in darkness for army to conquer. Normally, the vampires in his army could only sustain an assault for 8-16 hours at a time (depending on the season), but if Nightshroud could cast Eclipse during the Winter Solstice, then a large portion of the city would be in darkness for 8 hours + two 16-hour nights uninterrupted, and the vampires could establish such a foothold that Nightshroud's liches could protect them even when the Sun started coming back.

During the first night of the living dead, the PCs were able to destroy the trove of ritual supplies that Nightshroud would've used to repeat the Eclipse in the future, but they received a dying telepathic message that their Epic NPC allies had been unable to kill Nightshroud and that the Eclipse scheduled for that morning would still happen.

At this point, the strongest PC had just turned level 15. Even if they could stop the ritual - where their more powerful allies had failed - they would still have an Epic level Cleric to escape from. However, they decided that it was worth the risk if they could destroy the entire vampire portion of the army by having the vampires out in the open without the expected Eclipse to save them.

They tracked down Nightshroud to where he was casting the spell, and I rolled to see how many turns he had left before the casting was complete (I believe I decided on 3d6 and got 14). The PCs tossed a bunch of distractions his way:

Marsairshas (Catfolk, Barbarian, Boots of Speed, Run feat :smallbiggrin: ) ran circles around Nightshrouds bodyguards and threw a bunch of dither bombs all over the place, Tangri summoned an Earth elemental to burrow under the bodyguards and tackle Nightshroud, Sharek used his first ever 8th-level spell slot to subject the building to an Earthquake

Nightshroud's bodyguards couldn't afford to let the ritual fail, so they focused on minimizing the PCs' distractions rather than trying to kill them outright until the Eclipse was guaranteed (it helped that I decided their most powerful spells had already been used in the earlier off-screen fight).

Nightshroud finally failed a Concentration check with just a few turns left. The Eclipse was prevented, the vampires obliterated, and the liches more easily dealt with by the city militia.

… And then came the hard part :smalleek: Nightshroud had over twice as many levels as the most powerful PC, and they now had his UNDIVIDED attention. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Within 3 rounds, Sharek was forcibly transported to Gehenna, Mairsarshas to Hades, and Tangri to Carceri.

Each was mind-controlled into forgetting that they were alive and had been sent to the Infernal Realms because their enemy was evil, believing instead that they had died and been sent to the Infernal Realms because they themselves had committed evil in their lives.

And to this day, the players still count that as a victory :smallbiggrin: