Currently playing a Homebrew-ish campaign using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a base and inspiration. During Danger at Dunwater adventure after defeating Thousand Teeth and clearing the Bullywug camp, they came back to the Dunwater Promontory to report back to the Lizardfolk's Queen Othokent only to find the promontory overrun by a band of sahuagin, finding corpses of lizardfolk all around, and here and there lizardfolks fighting some sahuagin. They went on, fight after fight helping the lizardfolk and clearing the promontory of sahuagin until they reached the throne room where a Sahuagin Baron and 3 Sahuagin were about to kill the queen. A fierce fight broke out, many characters were injured from previous battles (giving the sahuagin advantage on attacks due to their blood frenzy feature) and quickly the tank - a lvl 4 warforged artificer who managed to have 20 AC at lvl 4 - fell under the onslaught of the Baron. However the rest of the party managed to get rid of most of the normal sahuagin quickly, just before another companion fell, and right when they were about to turn to the Baron, he called upon 3 more sahuagin who got the characters by surprise.
All seemed lost, when a lucky critical hit by the Barbarian, and high damage spell by the Druid practically one-shot the incoming sahuagin. Finally after disposing the third one, they were able to heal the tank and combining forces they finally defeated the Baron with a barrage of attacks and spells he had no chance at surviving.
The party, all weakened and with low hp, finally managed to eliminate the Sahuagin threat on the Lizardfolk, and save the Queen.
It's my first time as DM and I'm lucky my party has enjoyed the campaign, and this particular encounter was beautiful because they didn't expect the assault when they came back, and realized these sahuagin are a real threat.
I had a fun encounter when I told my party that a beholder got teleported to the feywild, and it was their job to destroy the beholder. I let them use explosives, which I thought of the damage on the spot, and beholder-slaying arrows. The beholder instantly died after 2 arrows with a bomb, and it was extremely memorable.
The story I am about to tell is fairly recent, as it has happened during one shot I've DMed this very year in May. Be warned though that it may contain spoilers regarding Alkazaar's Appendix, so if you didn't read/play it and you're planning to, stop reading right here, right now.
On with the story, my lovely players decided to play the adventure as a group of Gnomes, their names were Tronte [Fighter], Aenghus [Paladin/Bard] and Alston [Artificer]. After many hardships and the battle with Purple Worm (which is a story of its own, consisting of Gnome flying faster than 1 Mach), party uncovered ancient lore pointing them to the ancient city of Azumar. There they faced an army of undead in service of their newfound archenemy, Zikzokrishka the Forgotten. They battled many wights, skeletons, scorpions and even undead Storm Giant, whom Aenghus' Holy Avenger cut in half. Once the dust had settled and wounds were tended to, our brave warriors ventured into the ruins of ancient Mastaba, where the dracolich awaited them...
Skeletal dragon roared and unleashed its thunderous furry towards the gnomes, and the greatest battle this part of Anauroch ever witnessed began. Using dark and forgotten arts, beast summoned to its side two more undead Giants accompanied by a small battalion of creatures straight from the nightmare. Against them stood three short heroes, with hearts as big as Zikzorishka's lust for power. But they weren't alone, for each of them had a valiant companion, one of them was a dog turned Tyrannosaurs. That T-Rex wrestled with furious dragon, while little fellows fought off hordes of undead, with a little help from the spirits conjured by the horn of Valhalla. Tides seemed to turn in the favour of adventurers as the ensuing battle progressed. However, dracolich's wrath was immense as was his mastery over the Weave. A powerful spell stopped the flow of time and Zikzokrishka decimated conjured spirits, as well as his own undead minions with a breath of lightning, bright as daylight. Aenghus fell, so did Alston, and only Tronte, fuelled by the power of ancient Giants runes, charged the beast head on, ready to take one last swing or die trying... First cleave went wide, missing the target, but then... then impossible happened. Blade black as night carved through the neck of the dragon, taking both its head and life as powerful spells holding it alive for milenia shattered... And thus, champions prevailed, bringing peace to the sands forgotten by time...
And this is said encounter. I've modified it on the fly, so not every monstrosity my players faced is here, but the Zikzokrishka and it's bodyguards are here! Thank you for the time you took out of your day to read my piece :)
I recently had a fun session with my characters going to the Field of Truimph in Waterdeep. They choose to do four battles. They would only get a short rest between each of the combats. They definitely said they wanted the most intersted one. So their final Challenge was "Battle of Nature". In this encounter they were put in the center of the arena. The wizards at the corners of the area threw in stones that shattered into 1 Earth, 1 Fire, 1 Water and 1 Air elemental. They had only a few spells left and no hit dies left. The air elemental kicked it off with a Whirlwind attack. It was very fun. They won with only one person dropping. But everyone else was under 15 hps.
I am running CoS and my players finished the Death House last session gaining level three. They then spent some time exploring Barovia and all of the plot hooks there. I wanted to plan an encounter for their first face to face meeting with Strahd after they leave Barovia. They will encounter Strahd at the crossroads outside of Barovia and after a short exchange of dialouge Strahd will introduce them to a few of "His children" (Strahd Zombies) before retreating in a swarm of bats. The players will then have to battle three zombies, one of which is an eight year old girl in a pink frilly dress to add to the horrific nature of the campaign. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Dscryb.com, and the Lunch Break Heroes YouTube page have been big helps in adding some extra horror elements into the campaign.
I was running some sessions that started loosely based on the "Around Khorvaire in Fifty Days" encounters of the week series. The players were in the Mournland searching for an abandoned mansion and during the night were making their way through an old battlefield when the dead began to rise. The party was attacked by two skeletal swarms and some ash zombies. Already a little beat up from previous encounters and environmental challenges, the party first focused on the skeletal swarms and once they were done decided to run from the zombies. I put some more ash zombies in their path as they ran to make it interesting. The party knocked a few down and went around the rest, making their way to safety as I had the undead constrained to the old battlefield.
So the most exciting encounter I've had the joy of running was the showdown with the Chardalyn Dragon in Rime of the Frostmaiden. My players had seen the dragon devastate some of Ten Towns and decided to head to Bryn Shander to help them prepare. I set up defensive plans and strategic information about the city so that they could decide where to lure the dragon, where to whittle it down with ballistae, and where to hide the majority of the populace in an attempt to save lives.
They set up two ballistae in the cleared out market square and put two people on each of them. They fired at the dragon until it blasted them with its breath weapon and landed to finish the job. I had beefed up the dragons hitpoints a bit and given it legendary actions to make the encounter feel a bit more climatic, this was necessary as I had 8 level 5 PCs and some NPC guests in helping them. Though the dragon's corruption aura turned one of the PCs against them for a time, the party was able to destroy it before it had a chance to escape and the whole party lived.
Running Lost Mines of Phandelver, my first ever campaign last year, I was looking for ways to make the campaign more my own, and incorporate my characters more. I came across a beautiful map online done by Tom Cartos, and I knew that I wanted to use it in someway. Well about halfway through my campaign, the bard of my group, an apprentice innkeeper was tasked with finding some relatively rare items for his boss. I knew this was the perfect time to use the map I had found, and I also knew that planned on running Curse of Strahd next, so I crafted an entire story/quest around it this map which happened to be another inn.
I named the inn The Sanguine Dawn, after his Dragonborn spellcaster owner Dawn. The Sanguine Dawn gained incredible notoriety on the sword coast as being one of the best inns around, and Dawn, one of the most gracious hosts. This inn was Dawn's life, but she fell ill relatively early in life. This is when she decided to make a deal with The Undying patron who agreed to give spare her from her sickness, and grant her immortality. She of course obliged, only to wake up after making the pact to see that her and her Inn and been transported to Barovia with no guests, and her soul was tied to the building itself.
On one foggy night, the Sanguine Dawn appeared in front of my players with 8 or so NPCs staying there as "guests" all under the control of Dawn. Her goal now was to lure in travelers and trap their souls here with her to give her immortal life some purpose. The battle that ensued was nothing short of epic, taking place on all 3 floors at the same, innocent NPCs accidentally getting killed, and Dawn finally giving up at the very end after her establishment caught on fire.
All of this for some rare ingredients the Bard completely forgot to even look for before leaving back through the mists ending up on the Sword Coast.
I wasn't sure how to edit it but the party actually only had 2 players and an NPC. It was a cool encounter that started off with a chariot race, then a maze and then eventually a boss fight. with the creatures posted.
Ran a one shot level 20 game. The players where pretty much able to use any source book for character creation. Once I saw a few of them ( ranged fighter with oathbow, a paladin, 3 casters) I knew my original idea was going to be a push over for them, ( a tarrasque with a few 4E abilities thrown in for good measure) decided that the battle would start with a tarrasque breaching the water by where the players where waiting. Everyone uses a bunch of their big gun abilities right off the bat and knocked off over half its health in the first turn. Top of top of round two, moma tarrasque popped out the water to the west of the player. Fight became pitched as most of the party focused on the moma tarrasque, while the fighter stayed engaged with the baby. Only knocked out 2 characters that battle, but they had a cleric who ended up as MVP keeping everyone alive
I wanted to do a quick oneshot to potentially integrate a new player into a campaign, so we whibble wobbled back in time to do an encounter before the campaign started. I wanted a quick and quirky one so I found Wild Sheep Chase that just made me laugh! The characters are specific to the module, so I threw them in an encounter.
The 'big bad' is this jealous apprentice and a bed he polymorphed into a dragon, and the idea of riding in on a dragon with floral bedsheet wings seemed like a great encounter. They were level 3 at the time.
A young group of adventurers just landed on a new continent and accepted a quest to find out why traders and their beasts of burden keep vanishing. They find the spot but struggle for clues so they make camp, pretending to sleep and waiting. Sure enough, at night there is a lion attacking the camp, the adventurers jump up and kill the lion, at the last moment they notice the other lion and another beast moving through the woods. Ranger hunters mark the lion and they pursue.
My DM trap had sprung, they ran into the woods and found themselves face to face with a fleecemane lion! I have a strong group so I gave it a bit higher than average HP and what ensued was a pretty epic boss fight!
The legendary actions of the fleecemane make it a truly terrible foe for 2nd level characters! I loved the encounter and so did my players. 3 people dropped towards the end and the clerics did magnificent work getting them back up.
They all survived, battered and bruised and levelled up afterwards, and everyone is still talking about it excitedly a month later :)
Was running Lore of Lurue for my group, they were wandering down the path at the start of the adventure. Rolled the encounter for injured wolves, if they had done anything to help they’d have gotten four wolf buddies which would have been very helpful later on. They did not trust me in the slightest, snuck around and left them to die as I described them whimpering in pain.
The Vedalken that tried to measure power with the Kitsune was so much fun to interact with, the Kitsune trying her best to dominate the Vedalken(in that way ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) and failing miserably was absolutely hilarious. After the encounter ends, the Warlock wished for the body but got disintegrated instead by Vedalken himself.
My most exciting encounter happened very recently! My players needed to escape Darkon (VRGtR) while the mists were closing in, and it was thunderstorming on top of that. They were able to board the ship of a captain they befriended earlier, and sailed away from Maritia Bay. They were suddenly ambushed by (not OC) the Ghoul Captain Damon Skragg and his ghoul crew. The fought bravely for almost a full session before the cleric managed to finally finish him off by casting "Inflict Wounds" with her last spell slot. It was a really awesome moment for everyone, and I would love to do something like it again!
I created an encounter with multiple wisps in a foggy and ruined town at the foot of a forest.
Began with the party entering an empty, dusty, partially ruined town to look for a place to camp for the night/to loot some stuff. As they explored, a heavy fog descended upon the town. It resulted in an almost total lack of sight through the fog, players could only see 5-10ft around them, and noticed a ring of wisps encircling them. The party decided to try and fight the wisps, which resulted in several near deaths as they rethought their strategy and tried to flee. They picked up rapidly falling party members on the fly and fell into a pit in the centre of town where the king of an elven settlement that was destroyed earlier in the campaign was hiding with some survivors.
It was a pretty simple design, but the story behind it made my players enjoy it very much. In the past they have killed a Hill Giant in front of its brother, which led to a very targeted rage towards the paladin, who ended up loosing an eye in the process...and the party...feeling ashamed.
After returning to the silvercut road from their night at the troupe's caravan, the party sees smoke rising at the distance. The road is under attack! A bandit captain from The Nerito's Clasp and his crew have enslaved a Hill Giant named Olaf with magic chains cursed by the Crown of Neridia, the main tool of the BBEG. The bandits are bound to never let go of the chain unless instructed to, even after death (which eventually led to their bodies being dragged behind the giant and then being turned into human nunchakus.
The chain allows those who wield it to gain control of beasts whose patrons made pacts with Nerito. The Bandit Captain, Yurnacho screams constantly at the giant, and retrieves the chain once his companions are down. Olaf, who is sometimes reluctant to follow orders, stares sadly at the party as they attack him...and the party did its best to not injure him, but as their members began dropping unconscious it was up to the player once in charge of the now late paladin to end once again the life of a (somewhat) innocent creature.
My players were never supposed to fight this encounter. They were trapped in a dream realm reliving past events. The original events had one player be chased through a prision mine by hellish creatures and be saved by a Paladin. Thus spurring him on to become a Paladin.
Based on most encounters we had had so far I expected the players to run away. I had prepared maps, traps, wrong turns for what would essentially be a dash for the exit. My players suddenly decided to be brave. They heard the monstrous noises and headed towards it. They found an abysal chicken. One of the players attempted to make friends with it. As they got close a hell hounds jaws came through a portal and ripped it to shreds. Initiative. The Druid cast moon beam then turned in to a giant octopus. Blocking the rest of the players out of the room and suddenly realising he was in his own moonbeam. The fight went on and they took a lot of damage but defeated the 2 hell hounds. This is when the Shadow Demon started to come through. They were all nearly dead but they still refused to run. I had to invent a way to close the portal on the spot so there wasn't a TPK.
The funny thing is the next session the Paladin relived giving away all his poor families money for some "magic" beans. He new they were not magic and the consequences of buying them. He still did it. The Paladin had low intelligence. I didn't know what to do and couldn't stop laughing.
I wanted to spice up the cave entrance at the end of Phandelver, so I made a simple encounter that caused delightful panic, by having a mimic descending in to the put entrance discussed as a ladder. The fighter started climbing down, mimic grappled and fell in, and the cube started moving to feed. https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/452c3a6c-8dbd-4ce6-bcb6-23150e81aa02
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Currently playing a Homebrew-ish campaign using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a base and inspiration. During Danger at Dunwater adventure after defeating Thousand Teeth and clearing the Bullywug camp, they came back to the Dunwater Promontory to report back to the Lizardfolk's Queen Othokent only to find the promontory overrun by a band of sahuagin, finding corpses of lizardfolk all around, and here and there lizardfolks fighting some sahuagin. They went on, fight after fight helping the lizardfolk and clearing the promontory of sahuagin until they reached the throne room where a Sahuagin Baron and 3 Sahuagin were about to kill the queen. A fierce fight broke out, many characters were injured from previous battles (giving the sahuagin advantage on attacks due to their blood frenzy feature) and quickly the tank - a lvl 4 warforged artificer who managed to have 20 AC at lvl 4 - fell under the onslaught of the Baron. However the rest of the party managed to get rid of most of the normal sahuagin quickly, just before another companion fell, and right when they were about to turn to the Baron, he called upon 3 more sahuagin who got the characters by surprise.
All seemed lost, when a lucky critical hit by the Barbarian, and high damage spell by the Druid practically one-shot the incoming sahuagin. Finally after disposing the third one, they were able to heal the tank and combining forces they finally defeated the Baron with a barrage of attacks and spells he had no chance at surviving.
The party, all weakened and with low hp, finally managed to eliminate the Sahuagin threat on the Lizardfolk, and save the Queen.
It's my first time as DM and I'm lucky my party has enjoyed the campaign, and this particular encounter was beautiful because they didn't expect the assault when they came back, and realized these sahuagin are a real threat.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/388b287c-ccd2-435b-aeaa-9d8067cebf93
I had a fun encounter when I told my party that a beholder got teleported to the feywild, and it was their job to destroy the beholder. I let them use explosives, which I thought of the damage on the spot, and beholder-slaying arrows. The beholder instantly died after 2 arrows with a bomb, and it was extremely memorable.
Encounter Builder for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5e) - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
The story I am about to tell is fairly recent, as it has happened during one shot I've DMed this very year in May. Be warned though that it may contain spoilers regarding Alkazaar's Appendix, so if you didn't read/play it and you're planning to, stop reading right here, right now.
On with the story, my lovely players decided to play the adventure as a group of Gnomes, their names were Tronte [Fighter], Aenghus [Paladin/Bard] and Alston [Artificer].
After many hardships and the battle with Purple Worm (which is a story of its own, consisting of Gnome flying faster than 1 Mach), party uncovered ancient lore pointing them to the ancient city of Azumar. There they faced an army of undead in service of their newfound archenemy, Zikzokrishka the Forgotten. They battled many wights, skeletons, scorpions and even undead Storm Giant, whom Aenghus' Holy Avenger cut in half. Once the dust had settled and wounds were tended to, our brave warriors ventured into the ruins of ancient Mastaba, where the dracolich awaited them...
Skeletal dragon roared and unleashed its thunderous furry towards the gnomes, and the greatest battle this part of Anauroch ever witnessed began. Using dark and forgotten arts, beast summoned to its side two more undead Giants accompanied by a small battalion of creatures straight from the nightmare. Against them stood three short heroes, with hearts as big as Zikzorishka's lust for power. But they weren't alone, for each of them had a valiant companion, one of them was a dog turned Tyrannosaurs. That T-Rex wrestled with furious dragon, while little fellows fought off hordes of undead, with a little help from the spirits conjured by the horn of Valhalla. Tides seemed to turn in the favour of adventurers as the ensuing battle progressed. However, dracolich's wrath was immense as was his mastery over the Weave. A powerful spell stopped the flow of time and Zikzokrishka decimated conjured spirits, as well as his own undead minions with a breath of lightning, bright as daylight. Aenghus fell, so did Alston, and only Tronte, fuelled by the power of ancient Giants runes, charged the beast head on, ready to take one last swing or die trying... First cleave went wide, missing the target, but then... then impossible happened. Blade black as night carved through the neck of the dragon, taking both its head and life as powerful spells holding it alive for milenia shattered... And thus, champions prevailed, bringing peace to the sands forgotten by time...
And this is said encounter. I've modified it on the fly, so not every monstrosity my players faced is here, but the Zikzokrishka and it's bodyguards are here! Thank you for the time you took out of your day to read my piece :)
I recently had a fun session with my characters going to the Field of Truimph in Waterdeep. They choose to do four battles. They would only get a short rest between each of the combats. They definitely said they wanted the most intersted one. So their final Challenge was "Battle of Nature". In this encounter they were put in the center of the arena. The wizards at the corners of the area threw in stones that shattered into 1 Earth, 1 Fire, 1 Water and 1 Air elemental. They had only a few spells left and no hit dies left. The air elemental kicked it off with a Whirlwind attack. It was very fun. They won with only one person dropping. But everyone else was under 15 hps.
Recreated here - https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/6d5c49d4-e538-4711-b29f-4136b49dd113
I am running CoS and my players finished the Death House last session gaining level three. They then spent some time exploring Barovia and all of the plot hooks there. I wanted to plan an encounter for their first face to face meeting with Strahd after they leave Barovia. They will encounter Strahd at the crossroads outside of Barovia and after a short exchange of dialouge Strahd will introduce them to a few of "His children" (Strahd Zombies) before retreating in a swarm of bats. The players will then have to battle three zombies, one of which is an eight year old girl in a pink frilly dress to add to the horrific nature of the campaign. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Dscryb.com, and the Lunch Break Heroes YouTube page have been big helps in adding some extra horror elements into the campaign.
Enounter: https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/64fb6f6e-b053-41da-96cc-e8562f63c8b0
I was running some sessions that started loosely based on the "Around Khorvaire in Fifty Days" encounters of the week series. The players were in the Mournland searching for an abandoned mansion and during the night were making their way through an old battlefield when the dead began to rise. The party was attacked by two skeletal swarms and some ash zombies. Already a little beat up from previous encounters and environmental challenges, the party first focused on the skeletal swarms and once they were done decided to run from the zombies. I put some more ash zombies in their path as they ran to make it interesting. The party knocked a few down and went around the rest, making their way to safety as I had the undead constrained to the old battlefield.
Link: https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/4bfffe1b-badb-4a9d-883d-bd26ac420322/edit
So the most exciting encounter I've had the joy of running was the showdown with the Chardalyn Dragon in Rime of the Frostmaiden. My players had seen the dragon devastate some of Ten Towns and decided to head to Bryn Shander to help them prepare. I set up defensive plans and strategic information about the city so that they could decide where to lure the dragon, where to whittle it down with ballistae, and where to hide the majority of the populace in an attempt to save lives.
They set up two ballistae in the cleared out market square and put two people on each of them. They fired at the dragon until it blasted them with its breath weapon and landed to finish the job. I had beefed up the dragons hitpoints a bit and given it legendary actions to make the encounter feel a bit more climatic, this was necessary as I had 8 level 5 PCs and some NPC guests in helping them. Though the dragon's corruption aura turned one of the PCs against them for a time, the party was able to destroy it before it had a chance to escape and the whole party lived.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/cce364bc-bee5-4e68-9bde-7841a5e7f084
Running Lost Mines of Phandelver, my first ever campaign last year, I was looking for ways to make the campaign more my own, and incorporate my characters more. I came across a beautiful map online done by Tom Cartos, and I knew that I wanted to use it in someway. Well about halfway through my campaign, the bard of my group, an apprentice innkeeper was tasked with finding some relatively rare items for his boss. I knew this was the perfect time to use the map I had found, and I also knew that planned on running Curse of Strahd next, so I crafted an entire story/quest around it this map which happened to be another inn.
I named the inn The Sanguine Dawn, after his Dragonborn spellcaster owner Dawn. The Sanguine Dawn gained incredible notoriety on the sword coast as being one of the best inns around, and Dawn, one of the most gracious hosts. This inn was Dawn's life, but she fell ill relatively early in life. This is when she decided to make a deal with The Undying patron who agreed to give spare her from her sickness, and grant her immortality. She of course obliged, only to wake up after making the pact to see that her and her Inn and been transported to Barovia with no guests, and her soul was tied to the building itself.
On one foggy night, the Sanguine Dawn appeared in front of my players with 8 or so NPCs staying there as "guests" all under the control of Dawn. Her goal now was to lure in travelers and trap their souls here with her to give her immortal life some purpose. The battle that ensued was nothing short of epic, taking place on all 3 floors at the same, innocent NPCs accidentally getting killed, and Dawn finally giving up at the very end after her establishment caught on fire.
All of this for some rare ingredients the Bard completely forgot to even look for before leaving back through the mists ending up on the Sword Coast.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/cb3397ba-bf3e-45e0-a07a-a38f3de81302
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/8f426965-8388-4e32-b1b0-30195044344c
I wasn't sure how to edit it but the party actually only had 2 players and an NPC. It was a cool encounter that started off with a chariot race, then a maze and then eventually a boss fight. with the creatures posted.
Ran a one shot level 20 game. The players where pretty much able to use any source book for character creation. Once I saw a few of them ( ranged fighter with oathbow, a paladin, 3 casters) I knew my original idea was going to be a push over for them, ( a tarrasque with a few 4E abilities thrown in for good measure) decided that the battle would start with a tarrasque breaching the water by where the players where waiting. Everyone uses a bunch of their big gun abilities right off the bat and knocked off over half its health in the first turn. Top of top of round two, moma tarrasque popped out the water to the west of the player. Fight became pitched as most of the party focused on the moma tarrasque, while the fighter stayed engaged with the baby. Only knocked out 2 characters that battle, but they had a cleric who ended up as MVP keeping everyone alive
I wanted to do a quick oneshot to potentially integrate a new player into a campaign, so we whibble wobbled back in time to do an encounter before the campaign started. I wanted a quick and quirky one so I found Wild Sheep Chase that just made me laugh! The characters are specific to the module, so I threw them in an encounter.
The 'big bad' is this jealous apprentice and a bed he polymorphed into a dragon, and the idea of riding in on a dragon with floral bedsheet wings seemed like a great encounter. They were level 3 at the time.
Link to stats here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/3e10f30f-618a-4a80-8da5-c5fc63374934
A young group of adventurers just landed on a new continent and accepted a quest to find out why traders and their beasts of burden keep vanishing. They find the spot but struggle for clues so they make camp, pretending to sleep and waiting.
Sure enough, at night there is a lion attacking the camp, the adventurers jump up and kill the lion, at the last moment they notice the other lion and another beast moving through the woods. Ranger hunters mark the lion and they pursue.
My DM trap had sprung, they ran into the woods and found themselves face to face with a fleecemane lion! I have a strong group so I gave it a bit higher than average HP and what ensued was a pretty epic boss fight!
The legendary actions of the fleecemane make it a truly terrible foe for 2nd level characters! I loved the encounter and so did my players. 3 people dropped towards the end and the clerics did magnificent work getting them back up.
They all survived, battered and bruised and levelled up afterwards, and everyone is still talking about it excitedly a month later :)
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/833e4aee-288c-4524-924f-fa5ef0f68547 (Encounter was deadly but is now hard thanks to the level up :) )
I have not run this encounter, and I have not considered how balanced it may be. https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/386b3da9-b9d7-44ee-b8fb-27ca4284a81c
Was running Lore of Lurue for my group, they were wandering down the path at the start of the adventure. Rolled the encounter for injured wolves, if they had done anything to help they’d have gotten four wolf buddies which would have been very helpful later on. They did not trust me in the slightest, snuck around and left them to die as I described them whimpering in pain.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/0678a180-2db6-4e37-9613-56733a4c9eb4
The Vedalken that tried to measure power with the Kitsune was so much fun to interact with, the Kitsune trying her best to dominate the Vedalken(in that way ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) and failing miserably was absolutely hilarious.
After the encounter ends, the Warlock wished for the body but got disintegrated instead by Vedalken himself.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/6bdda470-04a8-40b1-9b71-e1ba6e3b81ee
My most exciting encounter happened very recently! My players needed to escape Darkon (VRGtR) while the mists were closing in, and it was thunderstorming on top of that. They were able to board the ship of a captain they befriended earlier, and sailed away from Maritia Bay. They were suddenly ambushed by (not OC) the Ghoul Captain Damon Skragg and his ghoul crew. The fought bravely for almost a full session before the cleric managed to finally finish him off by casting "Inflict Wounds" with her last spell slot. It was a really awesome moment for everyone, and I would love to do something like it again!
Here's the link:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/514df0e3-d6f5-42d4-bc1a-f32a28f55ee7
Matthew Mercer is my spirit animal.
I created an encounter with multiple wisps in a foggy and ruined town at the foot of a forest.
Began with the party entering an empty, dusty, partially ruined town to look for a place to camp for the night/to loot some stuff. As they explored, a heavy fog descended upon the town. It resulted in an almost total lack of sight through the fog, players could only see 5-10ft around them, and noticed a ring of wisps encircling them. The party decided to try and fight the wisps, which resulted in several near deaths as they rethought their strategy and tried to flee. They picked up rapidly falling party members on the fly and fell into a pit in the centre of town where the king of an elven settlement that was destroyed earlier in the campaign was hiding with some survivors.
Super tense, lots of fun, great RP opportunities.
It was a pretty simple design, but the story behind it made my players enjoy it very much. In the past they have killed a Hill Giant in front of its brother, which led to a very targeted rage towards the paladin, who ended up loosing an eye in the process...and the party...feeling ashamed.
This encounter begins the night before, when the party meets Sirdavio Madario, the leader of a troupé chased away from Westrunn due to a general banning magic and hunting down those who wield it. It was an amazing encounter, fun but shady.
After returning to the silvercut road from their night at the troupe's caravan, the party sees smoke rising at the distance. The road is under attack! A bandit captain from The Nerito's Clasp and his crew have enslaved a Hill Giant named Olaf with magic chains cursed by the Crown of Neridia, the main tool of the BBEG.
The bandits are bound to never let go of the chain unless instructed to, even after death (which eventually led to their bodies being dragged behind the giant and then being turned into human nunchakus.
The chain allows those who wield it to gain control of beasts whose patrons made pacts with Nerito.
The Bandit Captain, Yurnacho screams constantly at the giant, and retrieves the chain once his companions are down. Olaf, who is sometimes reluctant to follow orders, stares sadly at the party as they attack him...and the party did its best to not injure him, but as their members began dropping unconscious it was up to the player once in charge of the now late paladin to end once again the life of a (somewhat) innocent creature.
Link to the encounter Encounter Builder for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5e) - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
My players were never supposed to fight this encounter. They were trapped in a dream realm reliving past events. The original events had one player be chased through a prision mine by hellish creatures and be saved by a Paladin. Thus spurring him on to become a Paladin.
Based on most encounters we had had so far I expected the players to run away. I had prepared maps, traps, wrong turns for what would essentially be a dash for the exit. My players suddenly decided to be brave. They heard the monstrous noises and headed towards it. They found an abysal chicken. One of the players attempted to make friends with it. As they got close a hell hounds jaws came through a portal and ripped it to shreds.
Initiative. The Druid cast moon beam then turned in to a giant octopus. Blocking the rest of the players out of the room and suddenly realising he was in his own moonbeam.
The fight went on and they took a lot of damage but defeated the 2 hell hounds. This is when the Shadow Demon started to come through. They were all nearly dead but they still refused to run. I had to invent a way to close the portal on the spot so there wasn't a TPK.
Recreated here (They were level 4 at the time): https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/777c248b-b023-4dd6-9fcd-cdb02de55fe3
The funny thing is the next session the Paladin relived giving away all his poor families money for some "magic" beans. He new they were not magic and the consequences of buying them. He still did it. The Paladin had low intelligence. I didn't know what to do and couldn't stop laughing.
I wanted to spice up the cave entrance at the end of Phandelver, so I made a simple encounter that caused delightful panic, by having a mimic descending in to the put entrance discussed as a ladder. The fighter started climbing down, mimic grappled and fell in, and the cube started moving to feed. https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounters/452c3a6c-8dbd-4ce6-bcb6-23150e81aa02