PhantasyPen
2018-05-20, 05:21 PM
Alright, so in order to get my players to actually practice tactical fighting and being more clever about how they act in ways other than just wailing on the enemy until it's dead or having enough minions to just let number overwhelm the enemy, I have decided to create a gauntlet of five encounters, each focusing on different methods/aspects of fighting, with the hopes of getting my players to finally get a grip on how this works. What I am hoping is that the playground will help me go over each planned encounter, to make sure that I'm not creating some unholy monstrosity in one way or another, and possibly give some suggestions/tips to make sure than each encounter is memorable and separate from the rest.
My personal houserules, added for posterity and to make sure I'm not overlooking anything. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1To6wEgnR3KX39SbdHBHKovnfMx4YPfQT9XhnPRQ7zpE/edit?usp=sharing)
The Encounters:
1.) A Totemist, Tashalatora, Spellthief, Rogue, Ninja, and a Knight
For this encounter the Totemist and Tashalatora are specialized for grappling, and are meant to lock down two different characters for the ninja and rogue to sneak attack to death. The Knight is there to run interference with any especially tanky/DPS-oriented PC's, and the spellthief is supposed to eat spells from an ungrappled mage.
2.) An Archery Fighter, a Ranger, and a Two-Weapon Thrower
Lots of projectiles is the aim of the game here, I just want these guys to bury my players in enough arrows to blot out their character sheets. They don't have a lot of experience in dealing with dedicated ranged characters, so the change of pace should be interesting.
3.) Anti-Mage Cleric, Damage Over Time-Sorcerer, Fear Mage, Debuffing Caster, Sunder-Focused martial character
For this encounter I want to focus less on killing them through direct damage and more about just piling on debilitating effects and reducing their options as a way of teaching them about alternative ways of combat other than just throwing the biggest PC's army at them.
4.) ???
I'm not actually sure what encounter 4 should be, only that it needs to lead up to encounter 5.
5.) Abjuration-Focused Wizard, Conjuration-Focused Wizard, Mind Mage
This battle is meant to be a culmination of everything that my players have learned, taking elements from each of the four previous battles and mixing them with some of the strongest opponents that my players will have to face yet.
I will be allowing my players and chance to rebuild their spell-lists and maneuvers after losing to an encounter, but they will not know what each encounter is ahead of time, instead they will be made to battle them repeatedly until they succeed. For the most part none of my players are too familiar with optimization, with the most annoying one in that regard choosing to focus on minionmancy most of the time. I also have a player who is relatively new to RPG's in general, so I'm a bit nervous about that.
My personal houserules, added for posterity and to make sure I'm not overlooking anything. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1To6wEgnR3KX39SbdHBHKovnfMx4YPfQT9XhnPRQ7zpE/edit?usp=sharing)
The Encounters:
1.) A Totemist, Tashalatora, Spellthief, Rogue, Ninja, and a Knight
For this encounter the Totemist and Tashalatora are specialized for grappling, and are meant to lock down two different characters for the ninja and rogue to sneak attack to death. The Knight is there to run interference with any especially tanky/DPS-oriented PC's, and the spellthief is supposed to eat spells from an ungrappled mage.
2.) An Archery Fighter, a Ranger, and a Two-Weapon Thrower
Lots of projectiles is the aim of the game here, I just want these guys to bury my players in enough arrows to blot out their character sheets. They don't have a lot of experience in dealing with dedicated ranged characters, so the change of pace should be interesting.
3.) Anti-Mage Cleric, Damage Over Time-Sorcerer, Fear Mage, Debuffing Caster, Sunder-Focused martial character
For this encounter I want to focus less on killing them through direct damage and more about just piling on debilitating effects and reducing their options as a way of teaching them about alternative ways of combat other than just throwing the biggest PC's army at them.
4.) ???
I'm not actually sure what encounter 4 should be, only that it needs to lead up to encounter 5.
5.) Abjuration-Focused Wizard, Conjuration-Focused Wizard, Mind Mage
This battle is meant to be a culmination of everything that my players have learned, taking elements from each of the four previous battles and mixing them with some of the strongest opponents that my players will have to face yet.
I will be allowing my players and chance to rebuild their spell-lists and maneuvers after losing to an encounter, but they will not know what each encounter is ahead of time, instead they will be made to battle them repeatedly until they succeed. For the most part none of my players are too familiar with optimization, with the most annoying one in that regard choosing to focus on minionmancy most of the time. I also have a player who is relatively new to RPG's in general, so I'm a bit nervous about that.