Blue Wizrobe
2017-02-17, 10:09 AM
I'm currently playing in 2 5th ed games and occasionally DM'ing a 3rd, and one of my absolute most favorite things about being on the DM side of the screen is designing encounters. I've particularly enjoyed encounter design in 4th and 5th edition. I did a forum search and nothing turned up in the first 5 pages of results (I think that's enough skimming to not be considered COMPLETELY lazy) and nothing like this turned up, so I thought it would be fun to start a thread to share some great encounters that we've all participated in, from either a player or DM perspective.
Last night, in our FR campaign, our party of 4 9th level adventurers (Dragonborn Ftr/Warlock, Half-Elf Ftr, Halfling Rog & Dwarf Druid (me)) got to start the first leg of our high-seas adventure as we sail across the Sea of Fallen Stars from Suzail to Lyrabar. We had been at sea for a couple of days when we came upon a shipwrecked sailor, unconscious and floating on a piece of debris in the middle of the sea. We pulled him aboard and discovered he was a friendly - the leader of another band of adventurers we had run into a couple of times previously and had worked together with pretty well. When he regained consciousness (despite a 1 on ye olde Medicine check... Dwarven druids have terrible bedside manner, after all) he told us that their ship had been attacked in a heavy fog and that they had been destroyed by the largest pirate vessel he had ever seen.
Well, a couple of days later, we found ourselves sailing into an eerily dense fog that we determined to be unnatural. Before we could change course and try to get out of it, we were set upon by PIRATE GIANTS! A conglomeration of Hill, Fire and Frost giants under the command of an evil Cloud Giant captain had been plundering the area in their absolutely enormous vessel, and we were their next target. The encounter was LOOOOOONG, so I'll try to just recap the highlights to showcase some ideas that could be used in an encounter like this.
- The Hill Giants were the artillery of the pirate vessel, hurling massive boulders at us. They ended up destroying our mast and main sail with them, and putting a few holes in our deck and enough hull damage to leave us stranded for a little while while repairs can be made.
- Once we were in range, the Fire Giants hurled massive steel chains with heavy grapples on the end to anchor our ship to theirs so that they could board more easily. Our halfling rogue took advantage of the chains to sneak over to the giant vessel himself and slay a couple of Hill Giants (his Rapier of Giant Slaying came in really handy) before engaging the Cloud Giant captain.
- Lots of DEX saves to avoid being thrown overboard as the Cloud Giant tried all sorts of steering maneuvers to pull us in closer for boarding.
- The Frost and Fire giants boarded our vessel to engage the rest of us and the crew in melee combat.
- and while all this was going on, I got to make terrific use of Control Water, eventually pulling the Giants' vessel away into a whirlpool and capsizing it with a rogue wave.
It was a very challenging encounter, very long, VERY epic, and most importantly VERY fun! I hope it inspires some ideas for you. Feel free to share great encounter ideas and experiences that you've had, too!
Last night, in our FR campaign, our party of 4 9th level adventurers (Dragonborn Ftr/Warlock, Half-Elf Ftr, Halfling Rog & Dwarf Druid (me)) got to start the first leg of our high-seas adventure as we sail across the Sea of Fallen Stars from Suzail to Lyrabar. We had been at sea for a couple of days when we came upon a shipwrecked sailor, unconscious and floating on a piece of debris in the middle of the sea. We pulled him aboard and discovered he was a friendly - the leader of another band of adventurers we had run into a couple of times previously and had worked together with pretty well. When he regained consciousness (despite a 1 on ye olde Medicine check... Dwarven druids have terrible bedside manner, after all) he told us that their ship had been attacked in a heavy fog and that they had been destroyed by the largest pirate vessel he had ever seen.
Well, a couple of days later, we found ourselves sailing into an eerily dense fog that we determined to be unnatural. Before we could change course and try to get out of it, we were set upon by PIRATE GIANTS! A conglomeration of Hill, Fire and Frost giants under the command of an evil Cloud Giant captain had been plundering the area in their absolutely enormous vessel, and we were their next target. The encounter was LOOOOOONG, so I'll try to just recap the highlights to showcase some ideas that could be used in an encounter like this.
- The Hill Giants were the artillery of the pirate vessel, hurling massive boulders at us. They ended up destroying our mast and main sail with them, and putting a few holes in our deck and enough hull damage to leave us stranded for a little while while repairs can be made.
- Once we were in range, the Fire Giants hurled massive steel chains with heavy grapples on the end to anchor our ship to theirs so that they could board more easily. Our halfling rogue took advantage of the chains to sneak over to the giant vessel himself and slay a couple of Hill Giants (his Rapier of Giant Slaying came in really handy) before engaging the Cloud Giant captain.
- Lots of DEX saves to avoid being thrown overboard as the Cloud Giant tried all sorts of steering maneuvers to pull us in closer for boarding.
- The Frost and Fire giants boarded our vessel to engage the rest of us and the crew in melee combat.
- and while all this was going on, I got to make terrific use of Control Water, eventually pulling the Giants' vessel away into a whirlpool and capsizing it with a rogue wave.
It was a very challenging encounter, very long, VERY epic, and most importantly VERY fun! I hope it inspires some ideas for you. Feel free to share great encounter ideas and experiences that you've had, too!