Idea for an ambush

[CoffeeIncluded]

I just came up with this idea and so I haven't had the chance to spring it on my players yet, but I think it would be a lot of fun. For the DM at least. It involves two things: A situation where the PCs' vision and mobility are severely hampered, and a bridge. Some of you might already see where I'm going with this.

I think the two best locations for this would be in a blizzard with a bridge crossing a freezing cold river, or a sandstorm with a bridge that crosses a narrow canyon or ravine (the bridge here could be because this is where the water goes with flash floods, the canyon or ravine is deep, or both). In either case, shortly after the players trudge across the bridge, they are set upon by their enemies, who appear from the snow or sand like ghosts and fall upon the players. These enemies have superior visibility and mobility than the players, and hopefully the PCs will realize that they're outmatched and will retreat across the bridge.

Which is where another enemy hiding from sight collapses the bridge under the PCs, sending them plummeting into the freezing water or ravine.

Now the players are split up, surrounded, some are in freezing water or at the bottom of a ravine, and the enemies--these phantoms of snow or sand--are literally running circles around them and surrounding them like wolves. At this point the challenge will be for the players to regroup and escape.

What are your thoughts?

[LordEntrails]

I think you identify right at the beginning what is wrong with your concept, at least for the way I like to play;


I just came up with this idea and so I haven't had the chance to spring it on my players yet, but I think it would be a lot of fun. For the DM at least. ...

Adversarial play, where it is the DM versus the players used to be quite common and the standard approach. Most of the community has matured away from that attitude and instead focus on shared story telling that is directed and facilitated by the DM.

As for the idea, there's not much wrong with it. It's the attitude and reasoning behind it that makes it likely it might not be enjoyable for your players. Change the attitude and make sure that your players have at least three ways to "win" even under that most challenging of situations and it can be quite the fun encounter.

[CoffeeIncluded]

I think you identify right at the beginning what is wrong with your concept, at least for the way I like to play;



Adversarial play, where it is the DM versus the players used to be quite common and the standard approach. Most of the community has matured away from that attitude and instead focus on shared story telling that is directed and facilitated by the DM.

As for the idea, there's not much wrong with it. It's the attitude and reasoning behind it that makes it likely it might not be enjoyable for your players. Change the attitude and make sure that your players have at least three ways to "win" even under that most challenging of situations and it can be quite the fun encounter.

Oh, that was a tongue in cheek remark, apologies for the misconception. I like throwing challenges at my players and seeing them think their way out of them.

[Draconi Redfir]

if bridges are involved, then you need at least one Troll. it's law :P

but on a more serious note, i really seems like something that could be fun. separating and weakening the party could be a good way to force new ideas and interactions, maybe have some characters who usually don't get along or talk much need to work together or something of the like.

[Emay Ecks]

My biggest issue when I would try encounters like this (and why I don't anymore) is creative play or exceptional die rolls on the part of the players to negate the encounter entirely. Additionally, if you run the encounter like it sounds, the players have almost no say in how it goes, and feel adversarial to the dm (as LordEntrails comment says). If I was a player and this enemy downs the bridge in one turn, I'd exasperatedly ask you as a dm "Why didn't you tell us that this bridge was so flimsy a single attack was enough to break it? There is no way I would have crossed it had I known"

Once player characters hit around level 5 (and even level 3) they have so many possible solutions under their belts and are more than happy to use them.
Here's some things that can just completely remove the threat of this ambush early:
-Characters rolling exceptionally well on their perception to notice the enemies below or the enemy who will cut the bridge
-A warlock or wizard uses a familiar and sees enemies in waiting
-The party casts Pass without trace and moves across the bridge without any enemies noticing
-The party says "We spend several hours of in-universe time walking along the river, looking for a safer bridge, or waiting for the storm to pass"
-A paladin or ranger magically detects the spirits about to ambush them using Primeval awareness or Paladin's Divine Sense
-The party all tie ropes to each other (to prevent themselves from falling off the bridge, because the natural expectation here is that the dm will force the party to make dex/str checks every 30 feet to stay on this rickety bridge) making the regroup after the fall instantaneous
-Someone flies the party over the bridge

There's also the issue of "this doesn't seem like a good situation to retreat." Why would you retreat as the party in this scenario? You're in a blizzard, with low visibility, in difficult terrain (because blizzard). These enemies are not hampered by it, so they have double your movement, and can see perfectly. You can't retreat from that. The party will probably quickly realize that, and fight in what you anticipated was an overwhelming battle to encourage retreat. Now the party wipes, and blames you for throwing an impossible encounter at them. I'm saying this from experience. I had a party wipe when I put incredibly strong knights on griffons, with the expectation that the party would retreat. Turns out, griffons were much faster than the party.

[Demonslayer666]

I disagree that this comes across as adversarial.

As a player, I love a good challenge, so it sounds like fun to me. I dislike the flat featureless battles that are all too frequent in D&D. As a DM, I have limited sight distance in my encounters too.

Depending on your players, you may need to remind them that they can ready actions.

If the way to survive is to regroup, describe a narrow path that connects the two groups, or make it climbable, etc. Perhaps there is a cave for them to retreat into so the enemy can only come at them one way.

[ImproperJustice]

As a young GM I frequently threw crazy ambush encounters at my PCs and delighted in how clever I thought they were.

Many years later as a player on the receiving end of such encounters (often as a squishy support type), I have learned how unfun they are.

At one time, in a 3.5 game which I sat in on where the group had been playing with an advesarial GM for years, we noticed they were all running martial classes. When my buddy who had joined me wanted to play a wizard they all advised against it, because they knew he wouldn't survive the ambushes.

Six sessions later he was completely obliterated by a pack of some monsters (8-12) that attacked from the ceiling of an elevator shaft with no warning, and did like 6d6 sonic damage EACH in a cone attack.
The GM and the other players all high fived afterward about how exciting and challenging the encounter was since it brought everyone's hit points so low.
My friend and the one other guy playing a Rogue (who also died despite making most of his saves), never came back.

I share this as a word of caution that ambushes often negatively impact your most vulnerable members and they may feel picked on.
Maybe allow them some warning or means to prepare?

[MrStabby]

Ambushes are good fun and can add to the tension of a campaign. It is also great to take the initiative away from the players occasionally - they don't get to buff up then decide when to open the door. A good ambush should have a few things though:

1) A solid in world reason for happening. Why is the enemy, there, why hostile and how has it seen the PCs coming.

2) A metagame reason for happening. To provide a different type of encounter? To show that the bad guys make planst to? To showcase the strength of an enemy before the PCs get in too deep.


I think the idea has a lot of good parts but may need a little refinement. Why do they destroy the bridge? If the enemy is winning already why destroy it? The bridge is valuable to them.

My temptation would be to make the enemies weaker. Have the PCs drive the enemies across the bridge - they are quite likely to follow in my experience. In order to cover their retreat the friends of the antagonists collapse the bridge with the PCs on it. Give the PCs dex saves to run and jump to the ground at one or other ends before the bridge collapses. A mixture of passed and failed dex saves should do a nice job of splitting the party. Alternatively have str saves to hand onto the ropes/collapsed bridge - more likely to generate different types in different groups which can be a more interesting dynamic.

Ideally the enemy should have some great abilities that work well in small fights but poorly in big ones so they are much more of a threat to a split party. Reactions tend to be good for this.

[Draconi Redfir]

As a young GM I frequently threw crazy ambush encounters at my PCs and delighted in how clever I thought they were.

Many years later as a player on the receiving end of such encounters (often as a squishy support type), I have learned how unfun they are.

At one time, in a 3.5 game which I sat in on where the group had been playing with an advesarial GM for years, we noticed they were all running martial classes. When my buddy who had joined me wanted to play a wizard they all advised against it, because they knew he wouldn't survive the ambushes.

Six sessions later he was completely obliterated by a pack of some monsters (8-12) that attacked from the ceiling of an elevator shaft with no warning, and did like 6d6 sonic damage EACH in a cone attack.
The GM and the other players all high fived afterward about how exciting and challenging the encounter was since it brought everyone's hit points so low.
My friend and the one other guy playing a Rogue (who also died despite making most of his saves), never came back.

I share this as a word of caution that ambushes often negatively impact your most vulnerable members and they may feel picked on.
Maybe allow them some warning or means to prepare?


all due respect... but its not really an ambush if you allow the ambushed preparation time...

[Joe dirt]

Instead of weather which is highly situational.... basically an adventure party could in theory wait it out. Im thinking have them go against a caster with fog. And instead of collapsing the bridge u could use creature that can push people off... perhaps something like an earth elemental that uses tremor sense instead of sight.... gives the party disadvantage to hit the elemental while all the elemental attacks are at advantage

[ImproperJustice]

all due respect... but its not really an ambush if you allow the ambushed preparation time...

Eh.....a taven rumor about the snow phantoms which gives them some clue of what is out there still allows for the suprise attack/ ambush described above.
This could still allow them to learn about the threat and have some ownership in how mich time and energy they spend preparing for the potential threat.

[Chugger]

I'm having trouble seeing how split up the party is. The bridge drops - do some stay up top and some fall? Or some go through the ice but others land on the bank? If someone goes through the ice and is wearing armor, and a current is pushing him away from the hole he made - is there any way he can live? Does the party have the resources to handle this?

If some remain up top and some fall, do they have feather fall? Can the top ones jump to join the ones who went down, say? And FF land? Or just take damage?

I think you have a lot of rigamarole that's unnecessary in your set-up. Also I don't see what the challenge is toward them getting back together. Is it a fighting their way through monsters to get back together or what? Can you do this - split them up and have an attack come - in a more simple and easy-to-predict way?

Well, I'll let you answer me and see if maybe I'm just not seeing or grasping something about your set-up.

[Azgeroth]

problem 1, why are the PC's 'forced marching' through obviously difficult circumstances, into a very vulnerable scenario..

problem 2, are they really going to retreat across that same bridge?? i know i wouldnt..

problem 3, what if they dont all cross at the same time? what if some make their save?


there is a LOT of ways this could go wrong... mainly, because they are PC's, and no plan survives contact with the en... party, party is what i meant to say..

in all seriousness, its entirely possible to get them moving in harsh conditions, just bring it on slowly, if they are already headed to place B, and are on a time limit, they will cross the bridge, but how they do that is not certain.. best way round this, have the bridge split into 2, with a small 'island' in the middle, make the bridges quite long, have them ambushed on the island, they can only flee across the bridges..

but they will see this coming a mile away.