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DontEatRawHagis
2016-04-13, 09:15 AM
I'm currently building a combat encounter where the statues move around to give the enemy cover. It reminded me a lot of the more dynamic combat encounters in the published adventures. What combat encounters did you create or face in your games that were far above the standard combat?

Mine:

PCs against Wind Elementals while dangling from climbing ropes 100 ft over a bamboo spike pit. The players managed to avoid the Elementals, but then when they were at the top of the pit they used it against the enemy leader.(Who due to 4e's crap ton of HP survived)
PCs against an Ancient Black Dragon that managed to capture 4 adult dragons of varying colors to power his Deathstar. At the start of combat he released the White Dragon, at every 1/4 health lost he released another one. Set on a non-OSHA certified platform without railings over looking a 100 foot drop.

thedanster7000
2016-04-13, 09:26 AM
I once ran a game where one of the two PCs was fighting Santa and some elf fighters in a windowed building and the other PC was in a building opposite with a sniper rifle.

I hadn't expected him to set up in the other building so after he'd one-shot the chief elf before he'd even drawn his Christmas-light whip, I decided to have Santa's reindeer fly in front the window to block his line of sight. After he'd shot a few down he eventually hit Santa through the rest with a crit.

DigoDragon
2016-04-13, 09:33 AM
A miniboss encounter I set up took place in a spacious room with a tiled floor. There were four colors of tiles (red, blue, green, and yellow) randomly set around the room. I used construction paper to build an actual battle mat for this one. In the center of the room there was a crystal orb. As the players fought the miniboss and her minions, the orb would change color at the start of each round. Anyone who was not standing on a colored tile matching the orb at the end of the round took energy damage (determined by the orb's color).

It played out a bit like a game of twister and the players actually developed "camping" strategies to be able to land on the right color before the end of the round. It was also one of the few times the Bullrush maneuver got used a lot. A bit complex, but my group grasped it well enough and had fun.

DontEatRawHagis
2016-04-13, 09:43 AM
I once ran a game where one of the two PCs was fighting Santa and some elf fighters in a windowed building and the other PC was in a building opposite with a sniper rifle.

I hadn't expected him to set up in the other building so after he'd one-shot the chief elf before he'd even drawn his Christmas-light whip, I decided to have Santa's reindeer fly in front the window to block his line of sight. After he'd shot a few down he eventually hit Santa through the rest with a crit.

I do not need context this is just win.

Also Red Dwarf quotes ftw.

thedanster7000
2016-04-13, 09:53 AM
I do not need context this is just win.

Also Red Dwarf quotes ftw.

Yeah, it was especially amusing since we were using GURPS and were rolling for hit location. The final blow hilariously randomly landed upon Santa's groin.

Magentawolf
2016-04-14, 10:30 AM
I ran a 4e party up against an animated life-sized chessboard once; they got rather annoyed when a pawn got past them and turned into another queen. :P

Quertus
2016-04-15, 07:36 PM
Hmmm... Off the top of my head... Here's a few encounters that required the party to think about how to solve the problem:

A foe that, every round, would full heal, and became immune to any attack that had previously damaged it. (this was back in 2e, which was full of cool stuff, so I'm not sure whether this was custom content or straight out of the books.)

A foe that could only be damaged by healing magic (definitely straight out of the book).

An alternate plane, where all effects were reversed. At first it was fun, using a wand of fire extinguishing (thus adding a charge to it) to start a fire to cool down, etc. When we realized that solving challenges and killing monsters made us lose xp, we got out of there fast.

Flying foes with Improved Invisibility + Greater Manyshot. The only reliable(ish) way to attack them was to hold an action, because they would move after they attacked.

The great drop: a drop of thousands of feet, when time is of the essence. The obvious answer for many is jump off, and use father fall near the bottom. Hiding partway down are a pack of shadows. Between held actions and AoO, they can usually do quite a number on most parties.

A maze-like area with lots of openings per room. Lots of weak foes with (3.0) haste, who would make a single (ranged) attack, then hold an action to run away. Which, with Up the Walls, and hidden nooks at the top of the walls, was almost guaranteed to succeed.

A large room filled with swinging blades, crushing ceilings, and pit traps. Ignoring all these were the incorporeal monsters attacking us. I was just glad that they couldn't bull rush us!

Draconium
2016-04-15, 08:13 PM
Well, a couple of weeks ago, we had to go into a room to get a magic item in a certain room, but it was guarded by a Medusa, and we didn't have any extra senses or ways to negate her gaze attack. So we fought with our eyes closed. And by that, I meant me and the other players blindfolded ourselves and basically roleplayed the encounter/fight with the Medusa out. We ended up winning, and had quite a bit of fun in the process. I also took the head as a trophy/weapon. :smalltongue:

Quertus
2016-04-15, 08:37 PM
Medusa...
I also took the head as a trophy/weapon. :smalltongue:

How could you make that work? Hmmm... Undead don't die from being beheaded... So necropolitan medusa + vorpal blade / guillotine?

At Magic Item Wal-Mart Neogi Slave Central Khan's Gently Used Undead, the head would sell for... CR squared x 100gp (yeah, it's exotic, but he'll sell the body for an equal amount) = just under 5k. Sounds like a good investment to me.

Draconium
2016-04-15, 08:39 PM
How could you make that work? Hmmm... Undead don't die from being beheaded... So necropolitan medusa + vorpal blade / guillotine?

At Magic Item Wal-Mart Neogi Slave Central Khan's Gently Used Undead, the head would sell for... CR squared x 100gp (yeah, it's exotic, but he'll sell the body for an equal amount) = just under 5k. Sounds like a good investment to me.

Spells that preserve corpses + a bit of houseruling for Rule of Cool. :smallwink:

And are you kidding? I'm not gonna sell it. I'm gonna use it!

Quertus
2016-04-15, 08:56 PM
Spells that preserve corpses + a bit of houseruling for Rule of Cool. :smallwink:

And are you kidding? I'm not gonna sell it. I'm gonna use it!

Well, of course you're going to use it! I was just trying to see how much it was worth / whether/how others could have one RAW.

And, yeah, I'm fairly sure Perseus didn't use Gentle Repose, let alone slay a necropolitan medusa.

Knaight
2016-04-16, 03:24 AM
There was a fun fight in a space opera game involving a number of hovercycles, an air factory that someone was trying to get spores into, and several layers of catwalks being used in a gunfight, along with at least three distinct sides.

Recently, in a schizo-tech fantasy game there was a fight where the PCs were up against ten gliders (essentially light aircraft), three mage-archers, three mages who specialized in equipment summoning, three fighter types, and an enemy squad leader with some genetic modifications. There were some highlights, from the enemy tactic involving flying over the PCs to later air drop the second squad (which was about 3 miles away from where the gliders started) onto the PCs, the PCs tactics involving inciting mechanical failures at opportune times, well timed area attacks, and a very reckless manuever involving sending a bunch of projectiles straight up then burning defensive abilities like there was no tomorrow when it came down.

There were a few of the more eccentric zepplin fights in a steam/cyberpunk game I ran, involving harpoons, hydrogen canisters (for lift), and in one case an old style gramaphone playing Ride of the Valkyries.

Then there was the space opera game where the PCs figured out how to use the cargo bay doors as a weapon against boarding attacks on their ship. It had a lot of highlights, from the PCs baiting the fight to start with a massive missile salvo towards them that they chain-exploded at a safe distance, to the simultaneous boarding fight, boarding prevention fight, and ship fight, to the use of ships in a cargo hold as cover where they were turned on for their shield and used as cover by those not using them as stationary guns.

Then there was my robots game, which had a final fight I mostly don't remember. What I do remember is that the enemy robot had a tactic of hiding in a steam cloud at a precise temperature, invisible to visible and thermal detectors. I also remember that the PCs came up with a tactic to defeat it involving just pumping as much heat into the air as they could until the enemy was forced to cool, and then targeting the cold spot.