Millface
2016-12-23, 02:12 PM
Making this thread to share and view some awesome creativity that we've either created or experienced, hopefully giving the DMs of this board some fun ideas! I'll start so you know what I mean.
My favorite encounter that I've created:
In a mountain fortress with three levels, the third level (Accessible early on via ladder, but guarded by a ballista manned by kobolds at the top of a narrow staircase that packed a real wallop) first room held a construct with the iron golem stat block, but was actually manned by a goblin engineer who controlled it from the inside kind of Krang style. His pilot compartment had a see through blast shield (60 HP, can't cast through it)
The room was square, and had four pillars, one in each corner. Lightning arched between them and the golem in a tesla coil type fashion. Each pillar would shoot out a bolt of lightning once per round on the golem's turn that dealt 2d10 lightning damage. They had 40 HP each, and each one imparted some kind of defense to the golem. The defenses were:
Pillar 1: Damage resistance (all) to the golem
Pillar 2: Gave the golem an ability, Charge Cannon, 20ft. wide, 60ft. long swathe of lightning dealing 10d6 damage, Recharge 3
Pillar 3: Advantage to saves against magic and magical abilities
Pillar 4: Self Destruct, when the Golem reached 0 hit points, if this pillar was still standing, the golem would self destruct, dealing 15d6 fire damage in a 30 ft. radius
In addition to this, poison gas began to fill the room from two vents on either side in the ceiling. Each round standing in the gas was a DC 14 Con save or temporarily lose 1d4 constitution points
In other parts of the fortress the party could have deactivated these one at a time (not really knowing exactly what they were accomplishing until they arrived here) including the gas cloud, but they decided to take the shortcut and dealt with the ballista (even taking one of the Charge Cannons the second they crested the top of the stairs) and instead of running they grit their teeth and fought it out. I have a rather large group, or else it would have been wildly impossible. 8 Players level 7-9. Life Cleric, Two Bards, Bladelock, Sorcerer, Assassin Rogue, Moon Druid, and Paladin.
They fought the thing with ALL of it's defenses up at first, had to figure out how to disable them on the fly, and tried to fight from range because of the gas, but two members just waded in through it. Things were looking pretty grim until my sorcerer launched a fireball into the room and, smartly, asked if it interacted with the gas at all. I liked the cut of his jib, so I turned the gas into an incendiary cloud for one round, dealing damage as the 8th level spell. Two party members died pretty hard there, but it managed to knock out two pillars and hurt the golem significantly. They came through in the end. Luckily, the druid had taken a finger from each party member who's ever died for reincarnation purposes that he keeps in a bag of holding, so we managed to get everyone back up and relatively in one piece, though their races changed.
Overall, despite the admittedly and purposefully ridiculous difficulty of this encounter when fought early, the part loved how unconventional it was (not just a tank and spank, combat that makes you think, DM lenient with player creativity and ideas, etc...) everyone said that it was a blast, their favorite encounter so far.
Ok. Your turn!
My favorite encounter that I've created:
In a mountain fortress with three levels, the third level (Accessible early on via ladder, but guarded by a ballista manned by kobolds at the top of a narrow staircase that packed a real wallop) first room held a construct with the iron golem stat block, but was actually manned by a goblin engineer who controlled it from the inside kind of Krang style. His pilot compartment had a see through blast shield (60 HP, can't cast through it)
The room was square, and had four pillars, one in each corner. Lightning arched between them and the golem in a tesla coil type fashion. Each pillar would shoot out a bolt of lightning once per round on the golem's turn that dealt 2d10 lightning damage. They had 40 HP each, and each one imparted some kind of defense to the golem. The defenses were:
Pillar 1: Damage resistance (all) to the golem
Pillar 2: Gave the golem an ability, Charge Cannon, 20ft. wide, 60ft. long swathe of lightning dealing 10d6 damage, Recharge 3
Pillar 3: Advantage to saves against magic and magical abilities
Pillar 4: Self Destruct, when the Golem reached 0 hit points, if this pillar was still standing, the golem would self destruct, dealing 15d6 fire damage in a 30 ft. radius
In addition to this, poison gas began to fill the room from two vents on either side in the ceiling. Each round standing in the gas was a DC 14 Con save or temporarily lose 1d4 constitution points
In other parts of the fortress the party could have deactivated these one at a time (not really knowing exactly what they were accomplishing until they arrived here) including the gas cloud, but they decided to take the shortcut and dealt with the ballista (even taking one of the Charge Cannons the second they crested the top of the stairs) and instead of running they grit their teeth and fought it out. I have a rather large group, or else it would have been wildly impossible. 8 Players level 7-9. Life Cleric, Two Bards, Bladelock, Sorcerer, Assassin Rogue, Moon Druid, and Paladin.
They fought the thing with ALL of it's defenses up at first, had to figure out how to disable them on the fly, and tried to fight from range because of the gas, but two members just waded in through it. Things were looking pretty grim until my sorcerer launched a fireball into the room and, smartly, asked if it interacted with the gas at all. I liked the cut of his jib, so I turned the gas into an incendiary cloud for one round, dealing damage as the 8th level spell. Two party members died pretty hard there, but it managed to knock out two pillars and hurt the golem significantly. They came through in the end. Luckily, the druid had taken a finger from each party member who's ever died for reincarnation purposes that he keeps in a bag of holding, so we managed to get everyone back up and relatively in one piece, though their races changed.
Overall, despite the admittedly and purposefully ridiculous difficulty of this encounter when fought early, the part loved how unconventional it was (not just a tank and spank, combat that makes you think, DM lenient with player creativity and ideas, etc...) everyone said that it was a blast, their favorite encounter so far.
Ok. Your turn!