Monster Tactic ideas please!

[godthedj]

Hi all,

I'm running a story at the moment in which the heroes are in a bit of a gladiator arena scenario. They are trying to both earn money and also impress the priestess by fighting in 'prearranged' arena battles... There's 5 of them, and they're level 4.

The way it's working is, the heroes have to PAY to enter the arena. These battles are going to be VERY tough and if they try and charge head first at their opponents like people typically do in D&D they won't make it.... However, because it's an arena, these fights aren't technically TO THE DEATH, so I don't have to worry about wiping them out if they do something stupid, they just loose their money :).

Before the fight, I'm going to give the heroes a chance to 'learn' about their opponents and possibly discuss weakness/opportunities to help them swing the battle in their favour.

so.... I'm looking for monsters that the heroes really need to consider their tactics with... what I'm looking for are suggestions like:
1) A Banshee - Their worst attack is a scream, you need a way to cover your ears, cast silence or cause a lot of noise!
2) Vampire - They are weak to sunlight. Casting some strong light spells at them might give you the opportunity to win!
3) BASILISK - It has a Petrifying Gaze that turns you to stone. - Keep your eyes away from it or bring something reflective to turn its power against itself!
.....and so on!

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[Specter]

It's hard to imagine why a vampire would be in an arena, even if captured somehow. And it should be tough for level-4 guys to kill one.

Think more beasts tamed specifically for these contests, like dinosaurs and stuff like that. Basilisks work.

[godthedj]

It's hard to imagine why a vampire would be in an arena, even if captured somehow. And it should be tough for level-4 guys to kill one.

Think more beasts tamed specifically for these contests, like dinosaurs and stuff like that. Basilisks work.

They're at the annual 'Rage Games'! Creatures come from all around to compete! I have no problem with vampires turning up :P

[RickAllison]

I'll try my hand at this!

A Hag coven with a Hag Eye. Just as the party is using their resources to spy on the hags, the hags have sent a minion to spy on the party using the Hag Eye. The party who can find this out can destroy the Hag Eye to make the fight incredibly easy (each Hag takes 3d10 psychic damage and are Blinded for 24 hours), but the party can also attempt to divide the hags to prevent the use of shared Spellcasting. It becomes a fight to divide and conquer.

Mephit Swarm. Each one has different strengths, vulnerabilities, breath effects, and a Death Burst. This makes for a great early fight, easing the party into the tactics challenges. They will need to figure out how to exploit the Mephits' weaknesses while guarding against their strengths.

The Animator. The man himself doesn't fight, though he is a Mage of some power on his own. Instead, he hosts a set of enchanted items. If the party just tried to spy on it, they see a suit of armor dual-wielding swords and wrapped in ornate robes. The swords are attached by chains and seem to fly from the fighter's wrists (show a video of Kratos!). If they dig deeper, they find out the swords are flying out, because they are animated. The party plans to fight the animated armor and figure it will be easy, but they see something different about the armor as they enter the ring: it doesn't have the robes on. One Animated Armor, two Animated Swords, two Animated Rugs. A Deadly encounter for your party, but one that can be overcome with strategy rather easily. The two rugs are the tricky ones, inflicting the grappled, restrained, and blinded conditions while dealing damage and transferring damage to the target. Stick it on the casters and any spells requiring sight become useless. The other items are simpler, simply being bruisers.

[ClintACK]

Can you tell us more about the party? Ideally an encounter should both target a specific weakness of the party, and give someone the opportunity to shine.

A few thoughts:

Ambush: 5 suits of Animated Armor and a hidden Shadow Demon in a dimly lit arena. The Shadow Demon waits until the party has engaged with the armor and then sneak attacks a tempting target -- then moves off into the shadows to hide again.
Bottleneck: A Gibbering Mouther blocks the way to a dozen goblin archers who have plenty of cover to hide behind, unlike the party. There's room to move past the Mouther, but within the 10' range of its Aberrant Ground.)
Chaos: An Incubus/Succubus (disguised as a relatively ineffective kobold with a crossbow), two Flying Swords, a Rug of Smothering, two Swarms of Wasps, and a burrowing Ankheg. Works best if you RP the night before in the tavern, so the I/S can charm one of the party members. (The charm lasts 24 hours, so the "lucky" PC gets to start the fight on the other side.)
Doppel Gang: Five Doppelgängers enter the ring disguised as the party members -- and quickly charge to melee range for maximum confusion. (They can tell each other apart by telepathic means.)
Elephant: An Elephant. Starts with a charge and tries to trample.
Flyby: Four Spined Devils in a (non-magically) pitch dark arena with no cover. They will do flyby spine attacks until they run out. Note rules on darkness and advantage.
Ghoulish: A Ghast, three Ghouls, four Pixies, and a Satyr with pipes. Saving Throws for Everyone!
Intellectual: Three Ogres (one with net and trident; one in platemail with a greatsword; and one throwing javelins) -- when each is killed, the Intellect Devourer living in its skull teleports out and attacks, hoping to claim a new host.
Jellyfish?: An Ochre Jelly oozes slowly out of a pool in the center of the dimly-lit arena. Three Grell float silently hidden above, hoping to ambush the party. If one manages to grapple a PC -- paralyzed or not -- it will move straight up (15'/round) concentrating on attacking its prisoner. If a Grell is killed with a grappled prisoner, note falling damage.
Kobolds, Fire!: A dozen kobold archers with flasks of oil and flaming arrows. (Some throw oil, others fire the arrows.) They have already scattered caltrops and ball bearings and flammable oil across the area between them and the party. A few Imps (invisible in raven form) wait to swarm a tempting target (preferably a prone PC surrounded by fire) with their poisonous bites.
Look at That!: On a luxurious carpet in the middle of the arena are three wooden chests. The carpet is an Animated Object (Rug of Smothering) and the three chests are all Mimics. All of them are inhumanly patient.
Munchkinland: A fourth level party: a Human Vengeance Paladin with PAM, Sentinel, and a Halberd; a Half-Orc Bear Totem Barbarian with GWM and a Greataxe; a Halfling Assassin with Lucky and two poisoned daggers; and a Mountain Dwarf War Cleric 2/Diviner 2 (Bless, Portent, Shield spell, Heavy Armor + Warhammer)
No Peeking: The arena is dark -- a magical darkness impervious to darkvision, but weaker than the Darkness spell -- magical light (like Moonbeam or Faerie Fire) can pierce it in small areas, though the Light cantrip will not. Sounds of claws on stone and dark muttering, a cry of humanoid rage, weapons, charging feet. Two dozen Grimlocks are here in the dark. But there are also six Basilisks chained to the walls around the arena. The Basilisks do not need to be killed (though they will bite anything that comes close). Their gaze attacks are only effective if the party manages to light the darkness (in a way that illuminates both the Basilisk's eyes and a party member with open eyes). Even if they can see through the darkness (like with Devil's Sight) the Basilisks can't see them, so they can't target them with the gaze attack.
Oops: The arena floor has been replaced with a slick grey stone covered in an inch or two of dirty water. (DC 10 Dex save or Acrobatics check to move at more than half speed, fall prone and take one point of damage on a failure. Moving at half speed or less is safe.) Eight Grey Oozes and a Water Weird are just under the surface. And there are hidden drop-offs.
Perry What Now?: Four Peryton are flying overhead. Their strategy is simple -- flyby dive attack, repeat. Focus fire on any archer or caster managing to damage them overhead.
Queue: Four Quaggoths and a pair of invisible Quasits.
Roper: a Roper, pretending to be a stalagmite. Many stalagmites beyond -- big enough for goblins or kobolds to be hiding behind.
Spidey: A 20' ceiling has been added to the arena and webs are slung and draped everywhere. Five Ettercaps are hiding among the webs on the ceiling. They will try to Web the party before attacking. Torches and/or fire magic to burn away webs would be very helpful here.
Trap: a filthy-mouthed gnome bard taunts (Vicious Mockery) the party from behind a tower shield at the far end of an arena littered with statues, mosaic floors, drop ceilings, and more obvious traps. These traps are only dangerous if the party is careless. The alcove around the stationary bard is trapped far more effectively -- the floor around the bard is an illusion covering a long drop, his shield has a Glyph of Warding triggering on melee contact, the floor he's standing on is frictionless (so someone leaping over the gap can go sliding off the other side...)
Umber Hulk: An Umber Hulk has tunneled under the arena. A plain wooden chest sits in the middle of the floor. The Umber Hulk will try to ambush the party at the chest, but will quickly grow impatient and just attack them if they dawdle.
Vampiric: Nope, not a vampire. Stirges. 48 Stirges swarm here, starved for blood. (Lots of good strategies here, since they're tiny and only have two hps apiece. Gust of Wind, Sleep, any area effect damage. Note: The Stirges are released from a cage 90' away from the party, so the Stirges can't attack in the first round.)
Wolves, Where?: Two Winter Wolves, two Dire Wolves, and six Wolves. Pack tactics.
Xorn: A Xorn. The arena floor is unworked earth. The Xorn glides and attacks. It is starving, and will ignore the party if there's food (gems and precious metals) anywhere on the arena floor.
Yuan What?: Three Yuan-ti Malisons, one of each type. Longbows, then scimitars as they close the distance. The center of the arena sports an open circular pit with a bunch of normal, non-poisonous snakes, just for the ambiance.
Zombie Mode: Ordinary zombies -- fifty of them -- too many to take on directly. The center of the arena is blocked. Zombies are slow. The party will have to keep moving.


Note: Some of these may seem too challenging for the Party, depending on how optimized they are, and what their capabilities are. (Many would be trivial to a party built around ranged attacks, for example.) But then again, it's not like they'll die if they lose. :)

[gfishfunk]

Tactics are things that the enemies do during the fight that are out-flow of the enemies' personality.

The battles re-create famous themed fights. The party can learn about the fights, but start only by knowing the names of the fights.

Kobold Rampage: a MASSIVE group of Kobolds are trying to overrun the party. Small, weak enemies, but a large group of them. There are several regiments: Sword and Shields, Crappy Halberd (1d6, reach, second lines), and Short Bows.

Ogre Ate! (pronounced Oh, great): An Ogre or an Ogre and two Half Ogres. Adjust them to do area affect attacks that are low damage but knock people prone. play them as show-boats, mostly playing to please the crowds.

The Devil's in the Details: One minor devil, 3-4 elementals. The devil sits in the back calling out commands for the elementals. Once again, homebrew your own elementals, as a single one in the book is pretty strong for a level 4 party.

Oogy and Yuugi! - The arena will have a large pool in the middle, 15' deep. There will be an enormous crab that is 10' x 10' that will use its attack to grab players and try to drown them in the deep water (crab grapple). Bump up the crab's attack value by +1 and hp by about 80+ or 90+. That is OOogy. Yuugi is the Sahuagin (or other aquatic humanoid) riding the crab and shooting arrows.

[Joe dirt]

Arena combat... I see beast captured for the purpose of arena combat.... not things like vamps and banshee
And if this is for a presumed crowd u can't use things like basilisk because its gaze could potentially hurt a crowd

How about a rival set of equally level players trying to impress the prestess to

Or

How about trolls... players will assume to use fire but have them covered in mud soaked cloth and rags so fire deals 1/2 damage

Or

A what about a maze with the audience watching from above and through glass ceiling the players can see the looks of horror on members of the audience as they approach new dangers.... like jelly cubes and traps