Stalemate Fights

[Gamezdude]

Sometimes in a campaign I find myself with stalemate fights where the PC & NPC are of equal ability and are unable to get a hit on each other which just drags the combat. I have heard ideas of the enemy retreating (Which is pointless, as they are not losing) and the earth just swallowing them whole but all that just seems cheap...

Any ideas how to speed things up in an interesting and less cheap way?

[Eldariel]

That's a rare D&D problem. Generally 3.5 fights are short and brutal, and things are over real fast. Generally offense outpaces defense aside from immunities (and if PCs are immune to everything the enemy can do, the enemy should hightail it outta there and stalk/wait for their shields to be down or start sundering potential protective items like Rings). If slogging through HP is the problem, recommend and include auxiliary angles of attack like save-or-X and combat maneuvers. Have creatures gang up on a single target where it makes sense.

Overall, encourage diversity. Slogfests with comparatively high defensive stats are really the only way things can grind down. In such a case, you can just average out the result and fastforward through it. Generally though, I suggest having particularly humanoids come pre-equipped with the ability to switch it up. Have enemies carry buffy potions and such. PCs will inevitably wind up with the same. Use the environment. Encourage spellcasters and creativity. If things drag down to a slogfest, have the enemy realise it and escalate the conflict with buffs or change of strategy. Alternatively, they can try to escape and regroup. Fair, evenly matched fight is almost never desirable for either party. The risk of adverse outcome is too high. Thus, aside from the superhonorable, such should be avoided by PCs and NPCs alike.

[Zaq]

(Obligatory comment about how it’s not usually wise to INTENTIONALLY make a boring slogfest and it’s incumbent on the GM to make a good-faith effort to make sure that all challenges are appropriate, even if not always appropriate in the sense of “the PCs can and should kill the enemy in a fair fight,” but I feel like that’s a baseline understanding in this discussion. This post mostly assumes that like it or not, despite everyone’s efforts, we’ve found ourselves in the boring situation described.)

If the enemies are unintelligent, then it’s up to the PCs (or, more likely, the players) to determine whether to cut and run or to find alternative methods of avoiding the problem (slipping past, forcing the enemies into a place where they can’t give chase, distracting truly unintelligent things with a decoy or lure of some kind, using the environment in an unexpected and creative way, and so on). If they keep trying the same thing and it’s not working, that’s kind of stupid, you know? But by the same token, if it’s clear that the PCs aren’t likely to lose but also clear that no one is having fun slogging through an uninteresting battle, I say that the GM can and should offer to just narrate past to the end (maybe rolling a bit to determine resource expenditure but not forcing hours more of unfun grinding away).

If the enemies are smart, though? Their respective motivations can and should come into play, but they might be more receptive to alternative conflict resolution. Diplomacy (not Diplomancy) doesn’t have to mean “you get a new BFF/minion/sucker.” People can and do work out cautious deals with folks they don’t necessarily like or trust much when the alternative is obviously not terribly workable. Sure, it matters why the encounter happened in the first place (who’s the aggressor? Who loses more by walking away? Does either side have a big ideological focus above and beyond immediate self-interest? Is this anyone’s home turf?), but maybe the two sides can roleplay out a narratively interesting agreement that doesn’t involve one side dying. A nonaggression pact (“get the hell out of my home, but I won’t stop you if you head over thataway instead”), a bribe or other form of trade/compensation in exchange for passage, etc.

Sure, it’s going to be a compromise and it’s not likely to be as favorable to the PCs as would have been the case if they could crush the enemies and drive said enemies before them, but sometimes that can be more interesting and memorable than “and then we killed another [blah].”

And yeah, they still deserve XP. They overcame a challenge.

[weckar]

Can't help much, but thanks for this thread. I run into this issue a lot.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Debuffs can be rather cheap, actually.

The MMIII's sand blaster is an exotic weapon that blows sand in an AoE attack that grants penalties to various things, and since you don't make attack rolls with it, there's no point in taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency for it. Lassos can reduce land speed and cause issues. Harpoons can impale and hamper enemies. Caltrops inhibit movement and cause damage.

Tanglefoot bags entangle foes they hit. Eggshell grenades (from Oriental Adventures) blind targets. Flasks of oil make the ground slick under enemies' feet, acting similarly to a grease spell (and can be lit on fire). Tree feather tokens can provide cover, inhibit tactical movement, and are cheap. Liquid ice causes all sorts of problems where it lands. Smokesticks inhibit line of sight, and if you are prepared to take advantage, hardly inhibit you at all. (See: oil flasks + alchemist's fire.) Containers of brown mold deal cold nonlethal damage and feed off of fire, which, when combined with oil and alchemist's fire can rather ruin the opposing side's day.

There's lots more where these came from, too. And they're all really, really cheap.

[rrwoods]

While we’re talking exotic weapons that you don’t take proficiency for: at low levels a Net is some real nice mundane status infliction, and the fact that it’s touch nicely offsets the nonproficiency penalty.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Oh, and a +1 sizing/morphing/metalline arrow can turn into all sorts of crazy things that could help hamper enemies in a fight. Suddenly having a Colossal sized adamantine quarterstaff in whatever configuration you choose could come in really handy when (for example) you want to block a doorway. And (once again) it's pretty cheap. Probably don't want to give that to your players, though.

[Allanimal]

Containers of brown mold

What book is this one from?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

What book is this one from?Err... The DMG?


Brown Mold (CR 2)
Brown mold feeds on warmth, drawing heat from anything around it. It normally comes in patches 5 feet in diameter, and the temperature is always cold in a 30-foot radius around it. Living creatures within 5 feet of it take 3d6 points of nonlethal cold damage. Fire brought within 5 feet of brown mold causes it to instantly double in size. Cold damage, such as from a cone of cold, instantly destroys it.

[Allanimal]

Err... The DMG?

Ah i thought there was a price and weight and other stats for the container lurking in a book somewhere.

[Crake]

I've found the aid another action can be incredibly useful in helping to move along encounters such as this. For most characters it's trivial to hit the AC10 required to assist, giving the party melee a useful +2 to hit, add on flanking, maybe find a way to get higher ground, maybe have the rogue do a dirty trick to blind the enemy, find all the ways you can to stack the odds in your favour. If it's literally a one-on-one fight because the rest of the party is knocked out, then I find the best way to handle it is to literally grab a fistful of d20s, order them sequentially, and roll en-masse and have both the player and the DM figure out the next 5-10 rounds, in advance, and in order announce what their results are until either someone's knocked out, or low enough hp to warrant a retreat, then carry on from there.